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119 

THE REVISION 

OF THE 

ENGLISH VEESION 

OF THE 

NEW TESTAMENT. 



BY 

J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D., 

OANON OF 8T. PATJX'S, 

AND HULSEAN PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, CAMBRIDGE ; 

RICHARD CHENEYIX TRENCH, D.D., 

ABOBBISBOP OF DUBLIN; 

C. J. ELLICOTT, D.D., 

BISnOP OF GLOUCE8TEB AND BRISTOL. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 

BY 

PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., 
• i 

PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK. 







NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 

1873. 



y 









Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 

Harper & Brothers, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



INTRODUCTION 



ON THE 



REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE, 



BY 



PHILIP SCHAFF. 



CONTENTS. 



Trench, Ellicott, and Lightfoot on Revision Page vii 

The British Revision Committee ix 

Rules of the British Committee x 

American Co-operation xv 

List of American Revisers xvi 

First Meeting of the American Revisers xvii 

Constitution xviii 

Character of the English Version— the Work proposed xx 

Improvements : 

The Text xxiv 

Errors xxx 

Inaccuracies xxxiv 

Inconsistencies xxxix 

Archaisms xliii 

Proper Names xliv 

Accessories xlv 

Arrangement xlvi 

Conclusion xlviii 



INTRODUCTION, 

BY THE EDITOR. 



TRENCH, ELLICOTT, AND LIGHTFOOT OX REVISION. 

As the question of revising for public use "the English 
Version of the Holy Scriptures has at last assumed a defi- 
nite practical shape in Great Britain, and must before long 
claim the serious attention of all churches which use the 
same version, it occurred to me that this important subject 
could not be better introduced to American scholars than 
by a republication of the recent treatises of Archbishop 
Trench, Bishop Ellicott, and Professor Lightfoot, on the 
principles and mode of revision. Some friends, whose 
judgment I value, agreed with me in this opinion. Ac- 
cordingly, I asked the consent of the esteemed authors, 
which was promptly and cheerfully given. 

The eminent divines, whose works are united in this 
volume, are above all others qualified to speak with au- 
thority on the subject of revision. They bring to its dis- 
cussion ample learning in classical, Biblical, and English 
literature, a high order of exegetical skill and tact, sound 
judgment, long experience, conservative tact, profound rev- 
erence for the Word of God, and a warm affection for the 
Authorized Version. They are also well acquainted with 
the labors of German divines, who have made large and 
valuable contributions to every department of Biblical sci- 
ence. They adorn high places of honor and influence in 
the Church of England, which gave us the present version, 
and has a hereditary right and duty to take the lead in its 



V iii INTROD JJGTION. 

improvement. They are active members of the British 
Committee on Revision, and fairly represent its ruling 
spirit and tendency. 

Going over the same ground, these authors can hardly 
avoid repetition. They independently agree on the funda- 
mental principles and chief improvements. At the same 
time, they represent the progressive stages through which 
the revision movement has passed within the last twelve 
years. 

Archbishop Trench wrote his work in 1859, before the 
Revision Committee was organized, with the intention not 
so much either to advocate or to oppose revision, as to 
prepare the way for it by a calm, cautious, and judicious 
examination of the strength and weakness, the merits and 
faults of the Authorized Yersion, and arrived at the con- 
clusion that revision will come, and ought to come, though 
it has come sooner than he at that time anticipated or de- 
sired.* 

Eleven years later (1870), soon after the Convocation of 
Canterbury had taken the first step toward an organized 
effort of revision, Bishop Ellicott followed with his treatise, 
presenting the principles and aims of the present revision 
movement, and his own experiences when acting as one of 
five Anglican clergymen in a previous attempt to revise 
some portions of the English New Testament. He re- 
views the recent labors in the department of textual criti- 
cism, refutes the popular objections, and gives judicious 
recommendations, and a few samples of revision, selecting 
the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew, and four of the 
most difficult chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. 

Professor Lightfoot, of Cambridge, whose name recalls 
another of England's greatest and most useful Biblical 

* The first edition was reprinted in New York, 1 858, but was superseded 
by the greatly improved edition of 1 859. 



INTR OB UCTIOK [ x 

scholars, prepared Iris work in 1871, after the Revision 
Companies had begun their sessions in the Deanery of 
Westminster. He therefore represents the actual work of 
revision, and discusses it with such learning and ability, 
and in so catholic a spirit, as to inspire confidence in its 
ultimate success. 

It seems proper that I should add to these prefatory re- 
marks some account of the revision movement, and its pres- 
ent prospects in the United States. 

The British Revision Committee. 

The present organized effort to revise the Authorized 
English Version of the Holy Scriptures originated, after 
long previous discussions, in the Convocation of Canter- 
bury. This body, at its session May 6, IS 70, took the fol- 
lowing action, proposed by a committee which consisted of 
eight bishops, the late Dean Alford, Dean Stanley, and sev- 
eral other dignitaries : 

1 . That it is desirable that a revision of the Authorized Version of the Holy 
Scriptures be undertaken. 

2. That the revision be so conducted as to comprise both marginal render- 
ings and such emendations as it may be found necessary to insert in the text 
of the Authorized Version. 

3. That in the above resolutions we do not contemplate any new transla- 
tion of the Bible, or any alteration of the language, except where, in the judg- 
ment of the most competent scholars, such change is necessary. 

4. That in such necessary changes, the style of the language employed in 
the existing version be closely followed. 

5. That it is desirable that Convocation should nominate a body of its own 
members to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at liberty to invite 
the co-operation of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or relig- 
ious body they may belong. 

The report was accepted unanimously by the Upper 
House and by a great majority of the Lower House. A 
committee was also appointed, consisting of eight bishops 
and eight presbyters, to take the necessary steps for carry- 
ing out the resolutions. 



x INTRODUCTION. 

The Convocation of York, owing mainly to the influ- 
ence of the excellent Archbishop Thomson, did not fall in 
with the movement, and is therefore not represented in 
the Committee on Revision. But a favorable change is 
gradually taking place, and some of the most influential 
members of the Convocation, as Dean Howson, of Chester, 
are hearty supporters of revision. 

Bides of the British Committee. 
The Committee of bishops and presbyters appointed by 
the Convocation of Canterbury, at its first meeting, the 
Bishop of Winchester (Dr. Samuel Wilberforce) presiding, 
adopted the following resolutions and rules as the funda- 
mental principle on which the revision is to be conducted : 

'Resolved, — 'I. That the committee, appointed hy the Convocation of 
Canterbury at its last session, separate itself into two companies, the one for 
the revision of the Authorized Version of the Old Testament, the other for 
the revision of the Authorized Version of the New Testament. 

' II. That the company for the revision of the Authorized Version of the 
Old Testament consist of the Bishops of St. Davids, Llandaff, Ely, and Bath 
and Wells, and of the following members from the Lower House — Archdea- 
con Rose, Canon Selwyn, Dr. Jebb, and Dr. Kay. 

' III. That the company for the revision of the Authorized Version of the 
New Testament consist of the Bishops of Winchester, Gloucester and Bristol, 
and Salisbury, and of the following members from the Lower House, the 
Prolocutor, the Deans of Canterbury and Westminster, and Canon Blakesley. 

' IV. That the first portion of the work to be undertaken by the Old Testa- 
ment Company be the revision of the Authorized Version of the Pentateuch. 

4 V. That the first portion of the work to be undertaken by the New Testa- 
ment Company be the revision of the Auth. Vers, of the Synoptical Gospels. 

' VI. That the following scholars and divines be invited to join the Old Tes- 
tament Company : 

Ginsbtjrg, Dr. 
Gotch, Dr. 

Harrison, Archdeacon 
Leathes, Professor 
M 'Gill, Professor [deceas'd] 
Payne Smith, Canon [now 
Dean of Canterbury] 

' VII. That the following scholars and divines be invited to join the New 
Testament Company : 

* Dr. Douglas and Dr. Weir, of Glasgow (Presbyterians), and J. D. Geden 
(Wesleyan), were subsequently added to the Old Testament Company. 



Alexander, Dr.W. L. 
Chenery, Professor 
Cook, Canon 

Davidson, Professor A. B. 
Davies, Dr. B. 
Fairbairn, Professor 
Field, Kev. F. 



Perowne, Professor J. H. 
Plttmptre, Professor 
Pusey, Canon [declined]' 
Wright, Dr. (British Muse- 
um) 
Wright, W. A. (Cambridse).* 



INTRODUCTION. x j 



Angus, Dr. 
Brown, Dr. David 
Dublin, Archbishop of 
Eadie, Dr. 
Hoet, Rev. F. J. A. 
HuiiniRY, Rev.W. G. 
Kennedy, Canon 



Lee, Archdeacon 
Lightfoot, Dr. 
Milliqan, Professor 
Moulton, Professor 
Newman, Dr. J. H. [declined] 
Newth, Professor 
Kobeets, Dr.A. 



Smith, Eev. G.Vance 
Scott, Dr. (Balliol Coll.) 
Sceivenee, Rev. F. H. 
St.Andeew's, Bishop of 
Teegelles, Dr. 
Vaughan, Dr. 
Westcott, Canon. 

' VIII. That the general principles to be followed by both companies be as 
follows : 

' 1. To introduce as few alterations as possible in the text of the Authorized 
Version consistently with faithfulness. 

' 2. To limit, as far as possible, the expression of such alterations to the lan- 
guage of the Authorized and earlier English versions. 

' 3. Each company to go twice over the portion to be revised, once provision- 
ally, the second time finally, and on principles of voting as hereinafter is pro- 
vided. 

' 4. That the text to be adopted be that for which the evidence is decidedly 
preponderating ; and that when the text so adopted differs from that from 
which the Authorized Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the 
margin. 

1 5. To make or retain no change in the text on the second final revision by 
each company except two thirds of those present approve of the same, but 
on the first revision to decide by simple majorities. 

'6. In every case of proposed alteration that may have given rise to discus- 
sion, to defer the voting thereupon till the next meeting whensoever the 
same shall be required by one third of those present at the meeting, such in- 
tended vote to be announced in the notice for the next meeting. 

' 7. To revise the headings of chapters, pages, paragraphs, italics, and punc- 
tuation. 

1 8. To refer, on the part of each company, when considered desirable, to di- 
vines,' scholars, and literary men, whether at home or abroad, for their opin- 
ions. 

' IX. That the work of each company be communicated to the other as it is 
completed, in order that there may be as little deviation from uniformity in 
language as possible. 

' X. That the special or by-rules for each company be as follows : 

' 1. To make all corrections in writing previous to the meeting. 

' 2. To place all the corrections due to textual considerations on the left- 
hand margin, and all other corrections on the right-hand margin. 

' 3. To transmit to the chairman, in case of being unable to attend, the cor- 
rections proposed in the portion agreed upon for consideration. 

' May 25th, 1870. S. Weston. Chairman. ' * 

From this list of names, it will be seen that the Commit- 
tee, in enlarging its membership, has shown good judgment 
and eminent impartiality and catholicity. Under the fifth 
resolution of the Convocation of Canterbury, it was em- 

* Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester. 



x ii INTB OD UCTIOK 

powered 'to invite the co-operation of any eminent for 
scholarship, to whatever nation or religious body they may 
belong.' The Committee accordingly solicited the co-oper- 
ation of the most distinguished Biblical scholars, not only 
from all schools and parties of the Church of England, but 
also from Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Wesley- 
ans, and other Christian denominations. With two or 
three exceptions, the invitation was accepted by all. Dean 
Alford, one of the most active promoters of the revision 
movement, died prematurely (January, 1871), but his works 
remain to aid the cause. Dr. Tregelles is prevented by 
feeble health from taking an active part ; but he is pres- 
ent in spirit by his critical edition of the Greek Testament, 
to which he has devoted the best years of his life. The 
two companies hold sessions four days every month in the 
venerable Deanery of Westminster. One company occu- 
pies the historic Jerusalem Chamber, where the Westmin- 
ster Assembly met, and where the Convocation of Canter- 
bury holds its sessions. 

The Committee includes a large portion of the ripest and 
soundest Biblical scholarship of Great Britain. I do not 
hesitate to say that in ability, learning, tact, and experience 
it is superior to any previous combination for a similar pur- 
pose, not excepting the forty-seven revisers of King James, 
most of whom are now forgotten. Trench, Ellicott, Light- 
foot, Stanley, Wordsworth, and the late Dean Alford stand 
first among the modern exegetes of the Church of England, 
and Alexander, Angus, Brown, Eadie, Fairbairn, Milligan, 
hold a similar rank among the other denominations. There 
are no textual critics now living superior to Tregelles, Scriv- 
ener, Westcott, and Hort (except Tischendorf in Germany, 
who stands first in reputation and in the extent of his la- 
bors and resources). 

It was my privilege, during a visit to England in 1871, 



WTR OD TJCTION. x [[[ 

to attend, by special invitation, the sessions of the two 
companies in the Deanery of Westminster, and to observe 
their mode of operation. I was very favorably impressed 
with the scholarly ability, the conscientious accuracy and 
thoroughness, the reverent spirit and truly Christian har- 
mony which, characterize the labors of the revisers. Every 
question of textual criticism and exegesis receives careful 
attention, and every word and its best rendering are mi- 
nutely discussed- The revisers come thoroughly prepared 
to each session, the several parts of the task, as readings, 
marginal references, being assigned to sub-committees. In 
this way they finish, on an average, about forty verses a 
day. 

• Such an amount of work bestowed on the Book of books 
can not be in vain. It may take seven or ten years till the 
revision is finished, but it will be all the better for it. There 
is no need of haste in so important and responsible an un- 
dertaking. The revisers have the power in their hands; 
they can supply their vacancies, add to their number, and 
prolong their labors as the case may require. Their serv- 
ices are gratuitous. The two Universities, in consideration 
of the copyright of the revised edition, have undertaken to 
pay the cost of printing and other expenses. But, until 
the whole is completed, no parts will be published except 
for the strictly private use of the revisers. This is no doubt 
a wise course, and will prevent much premature and un- 
necessary criticism. 

I add a full list of the members of the British Commit- 
tee as it was furnished to me in England, excluding those 
who declined or died, and including those who are members 
ex officio, or who have been added since the organization. 

(1.) OLD TESTAMENT REVISION COMPANY. 

The Eight Rev. the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Palace, Wells, Somerset. 
The Right Rev. the Bishop of Ely, Palace, Ely. 



xiv INTRODUCTION. 

The Right Rev. the Bishop of Llandaff, Bishop's Court, Llandaff. 

The Right Rev. the Bishop of St. David's (Chairman), Abergwili Palace, 

Carmarthen. 
The Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury, Deanery, Canterbury. 
The Ven. Archdeacon Harrison, Canterbury. 
The Ven. Archdeacon Rose, Houghton Conquest, Ampthill. 
The Rev. Canon Selwtn, Trumpington Road, Cambridge. 
The Rev. Dr. Kay, Great Leighs, Chelmsford. 

The Rev. Dr. Alexander, Pinkieburn, Musselburgh, Edinburgh. 

R. L. Bensly, Esq., University Library, Cambridge. 

Professor Chenery, Reform Club, S.W. 

The Rev. Professor Davidson, 10 Rillbank Terrace, Edinburgh. 

The Rev. Dr. Davies, Baptist College, Regent's Park, N. W. 

The Rev. Dr. Douglas, 10 Eitzroy Place, Glasgow. 

The Rev. Principal Fairbairn, 13 Elmbank Crescent, Glasgow. 

The Rev. F. Eield, 2 Carlton Terrace, Heigham, Norwich. 

The Rev. J. D. Geden, Wesleyan College, Didsbury, Manchester. 

The Rev. Dr. Ginsburg, Holm Lea, Binfield, Bracknell, Berks. 

The Rev. Dr. Gotch, Baptist College, Bristol. 

The Rev. Professor Leathes, King's College, London, 47 Priory Road. 

The Rev. Canon Peroavne, Trinity College, Cambridge. 

The Rev. Professor Plumptre, Pluckley, Ashford. 

The Rev. Professor Weir, University, Glasgow. 

W. Aldis Wright, Esq. (Secretary), Trinity College, Cambridge. 



(2.) NEW testament revision company. 
The Right Rev. the Bishop of Winchester, Winchester House, S.W. 
The Right Rev. the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol (Chairman), 

Palace, Gloucester. 
The Right Rev. the Bishop of Salisbury, Palace, Salisbury. 
The Very Rev. the Dean of Westminster, Deanery, Westminster, S.W. 
The Very Rev. Dr. Scott, Dean of Rochester, Rochester. 
The Ven. the Prolocutor, The Prebendal, Aylesbury. 
The Rev. Canon Blakesley, Vicarage, Ware. 

The Most Rev. the Archbishop of Dublin, Palace, Dublin. 

The Right Rev. the Bishop of St Andrew's, The Eeu House, Perth. 

The Rev. Dr. Angus, Baptist College, Regent's Park, N.W. 

The Rev. Dr. David Brown, Free Church College, Aberdeen. 

The Rev. Professor Eadie, 6 Thornville Terrace, Glasgow. 

The Rev. F. J. A. Hort, 6 St. Peter's Terrace, Cambridge. 

The Rev. W. G. Humphry, Vicarage, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, W.C. 

The Rev. Canon Kennedy, The Elms, Cambridge. 

The Ven. Archdeacon Lee, Dublin. 

The Rev. Canon Lightfoot, Trinity College, Cambridge. 

The Rev. Professor Milligan, University, Aberdeen. 






IX TR OB UCTIOX. x v 



The Eev. Professor Moulton, Wesleyan College, Richmond, Surrey. 

The Key. Professor Newth, 25 Clifton Road, N.W. 

The Rev. Professor Roberts, St. Andrew's. 

The Rev. Dr. G. Vance Smith, York. 

The Rev. Dr. Scrivener, Gerrans, Grampound. 

Dr. Tregelles, G Portland Square, Plymouth. 

The Rev. Dr. Vaughan, Master of the Temple, The Temple, London. 

The Rev. Canon Westcott, Precincts, Peterborough. 

The Rev. J. Troctbeck (Secretary'), 4 Dean's Yard, "Westminster. 



American Co-ojperation. 

The British Committee is fully competent, without for- 
eign aid, to do justice to the work committed to its care. 
Yet, in view of its practical aim to furnish a revision not 
for scholars, but for the churches, it is of great importance 
to secure, at the outset, the sympathy and co-operation of 
Biblical scholars in the United States, where the Author- 
ized Yersion is as widely used and as highly respected as in 
Great Britain. Bival revisions would only add new fuel 
to sectarian divisions already too numerous among Protest- 
ants. Let us hold fast by all means to the strongest bond 
of interdenominational and international union which we 
have in a common Bible. The new revision, when com- 
pleted, should appear with the imprimatur of the united 
Biblical scholarship of English-speaking Christendom. 

In August, 1870, Dr. Joseph Angus, President of Ee- 
gent's Park College, London, and one of the British re- 
visers, arrived in New York, with a letter from Bishop El- 
licott, chairman of the New Testament Company, author- 
izing him to open negotiations for the formation of an 
American Committee of Revision. At his request, I pre- 
pared a draft of rules for co-operation, and a list of names 
of Biblical scholars who would probably best represent the 
different denominations and literary institutions in this 
movement. The suggestions were submitted to the Brit- 
ish Committee and substantially approved. Then followed 



X V i INTR OD UCTION. 

an interesting official correspondence, conducted, on behalf 
of the British Committee, by the Bishop of Winchester, the 
Dean of Westminster, the Bishop of Gloucester and Bris- 
tol, and Dr. Angus. I was empowered by the British Com- 
mittee to select and invite scholars from non-Episcopal 
Churches ; the nomination of members from the American 
Episcopal Church was, for obvious reasons, placed in the 
hands of some of its Bishops ; but, as they declined to take 
action, I was requested to fill out the list. It is not neces- 
sary, in this place, to enter into details. I will only state 
the result of the negotiations. 

List of American ^Revisers. 

THE OLD TESTAMENT COMPANY. 

Prof. Thomas J. Conant, D.D Brooklyn, N. Y. 

' ' George E. Day, D.D New Haven, Conn. 

" John De Witt, D.D New Brunswick, N. J. 

" William Henry Green, D.D Princeton, N. J. 

" George Emlen Hare, D.D Philadelphia, Pa. 

' ' Charles P. Krauth, D. D Philadelphia, Pa. 

" Joseph Packard, D.D Fairfax, Va. 

' ' Calvin E. Stowe, D.D Cambridge, Mass. 

" James Strong, D.D Madison, N. J. 

" C. V. A. Van Dyck, M. D. * Bey rut, Syria. 

" Tayler Lewis, LL.D Schenectady, N. Y. 

the new testament company. 

Eight Eev. Alfred Lee, D.D Wilmington, Delaware. 

Prof. Ezra Abbot, D.D., LL.D Cambridge, Mass. 

Rev. G. R. Crooks, D.D New York. 

Prof. H. B. Hackett, D.D., LL.D Rochester, N. Y. 

" James Hadley, LL.D. New Haven, Conn. 

" Charles Hodge, D.D., LL.D Princeton, N. J. 

" A. C. Kendrick, D.D .Rochester, N.Y. 

" Matthew B. Riddle, D.D Hartford, Conn. 

' ' Charles Short, LL.D New York. 

" Henry B. Smith, D.D., LL.D New York. 

" J. Henry Thayer, D.D Andover, Mass. 

" W. F. Warren, D.D Boston, Mass. 

* Dr. Van Dyck, the distinguished translator of the Arabic Bible, can not 
be expected to attend the meetings, but may be occasionally consulted on 
questions involving a thorough knowledge of Semitic languages. 



IXTRODUCTIOX. xv y 

Kev. Edward A. Washburn, D.D New York. 

" Theo. D. Woolset, D.D., LL.D New Haven, Conn. 

Prof. Philip Schaff, D.D New York. 

In the delicate task of selection, reference was had, first 
of all, to ability, experience, and reputation in Biblical learn- 
ing and criticism ; next, to denominational connection and 
standing, so as to have a fair representation of the leading 
Churches and theological institutions ; and last, to local con- 
venience, in order to secure regular attendance. Some dis- 
tinguished scholars were necessarily omitted, but may be 
added hereafter by the committee itself. 

So far as I know, the selection has given general sat- 
isfaction. A few gentlemen (not included in the above 
list) declined the invitation for personal reasons, but not 
from any hostility to the pending revision. One of these, 
a learned Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, wrote 
to me : ' Let me assure you, it is from no feeling that a re- 
vision is not needed, nor yet from any unwillingness to in- 
voke aid in making it from others than members of the 
Church of England, that I have been led to this view of 
my duty.' Another wrote : i Respecting the success of the 
enterprise I have little doubt. The result of the best schol- 
arship of the Church in England and America will com- 
mand assent, and the opposition will speedily subside.' 

First Meeting of the American Revisers. 
On the 7th of December, 1871, a number of American 
revisers convened in New York for the purpose of effect- 
ing a temporary organization and adopting a Constitution. 
The meeting was very pleasant and harmonious. The fol- 
lowing extract from the Minutes contains the items of pub- 
lic interest : 

'At a meeting of gentlemen invited by Per. Philip Schaff, D.D., to meet 
this day at his study, No. 40 Bible House, New York, for the purpose of 
forming an organization to co-operate with the British Committee in the re- 

B 



XVlll INTRODUCTION. 

vision of the Authorized English Version of the Scriptures, the following per- 
sons were present, viz. : 

' Prof. Philip Schaff, D.D., New York ; Prof. Henry B. Smith, D.D., New 
York ; Prof. Wm. Henry Green, D.D., Princeton, N. J. ; Prof. George Em- 
len Hare, D.D., Philadelphia, Pa. ; Prof. Charles P. Krauth,D.D., Philadel- 
phia ; Rev. Thomas J. Conant, D.D. , Brooklyn, N. Y. ; Prof. George E. Day, 
D.D., New Haven, Conn. ; Ezra Abbot, LL.D., Cambridge, Mass. : Rev Ed- 
ward A. Washburn, D.D., New York. 

' Dr. Howson, Dean of Chester, was also present by special invitation, and 
took part in the deliberations. 

' Ex-President Woolsey, Prof. Hackett, Prof. Strong, Prof. Stowe, and oth- 
ers, were prevented from attending, but expressed by letter their hearty inter- 
est in the proposed work, and their readiness to co-operate. 

' The, meeting was organized by the appointment of Prof. Henry B. Smith 
as Chairman, and Prof. George E. Day as Secretary. ******* 

Constitution. 

'I. The American Committee, invited by the British Committee engaged 
in the revision of the Authorized English Version of the Holy Scriptures to 
co-operate with them, shall be composed of Biblical scholars and divines in 
the United States. 

4 II. This Committee shall have the power to elect its officers, to add to 
its number, and to fill its own vacancies. 

'Ill The officers shall consist of a President, a Corresponding Secretary 
and a Treasurer. The President shall conduct the official correspondence 
with the British revisers. The Secretary shall conduct the home correspond- 
ence. x 

< IV. New members of the Committee, and corresponding members, must 
be nominated at a previous meeting, and elected unanimously by ballot 

V. The American Committee shall co-operate with the British Compa- 
nies on the basis of the principles and rules of revision adopted by the British 
Committee. 

'VI. The American Committee shall consist of two companies, the one 
for the revision of the Authorized Version of the Old Testament, the other 
for the revision of the Authorized Version of the New Testament. 

'VII. Each Company shall elect its own Chairman and Recording Secre- 
tary. 

' VIII. The British Companies will submit to the American Companies 
from time to time, such portions of their work as have passed the first revi- 
sion, and the American Companies will transmit their criticisms and sug- 
gestions to the British Companies before the second revision.. 

' IX. A joint meeting of the American and British Companies shall be 
held, if possible, in London, before final action. 

' X. The American Committee to pay their own expenses. 

'A communication from Bishop Ellicott, D.D., to Dr. Schaff, dated Oc- 
tober 23, 1871, was read, containing the following resolution of the British 
Committee : 



INTR OD TJCTION. x j x 

' "Resolution — That the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol be requested to 
communicate with Dr. Schaff to the effect that the work of the New Testa- 
ment revisers is at present only tentative and provisional, and that it may 
be considerably altered at the second revision ; but that, upon the assurance 
of Dr. Schaff that the work, so far as it is at present advanced, will be con- 
sidered as strictly confidential, the company will send a sufficient number of 
copies for Dr. Schaff and his brother revisers, for their own private use, the 
copies to be in no way made public beyond themselves. 

' "For this purpose that Dr. Schaff be requested to send the names and 
addresses of the scholars associated with him in this matter so soon as the 
company is completely formed. " ' ***** 

On the evening of the same day the movement was pub- 
licly inaugurated by a meeting in Calvary Church, Fourth 
Avenue, New York, at which Dr. Washburn, Dean Howson, 
D.D., and the writer made addresses on the subject of Bible 
Revision before a very large and intelligent audience, in- 
cluding many clergymen from different denominations. 
Full reports of the meeting were published in the Chris- 
tian Intelligencer ', the Protestant Churchman^ and other 
papers. 

The organization of the American Committee was duly 
reported. Certain difficulties which stood in the way of 
co-operation were removed by farther correspondence and 
personal conference of the writer with the British revisers 
on a recent visit to England. The British Committee, at 
its meeting July 17, 1872, took the following action : 

' Dr. Schaff having communicated to the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol 
the following as the names of the American revisers, .... it was resolved 
that so many copies of the revised version of the first three Gospels be in- 
trusted to Dr. Schaff for the use of the above named, with the request that 
they be regarded as private and confidential, and with the intimation that 
the work itself is provisional and tentative, and likely to undergo considerable 
modification.' 

The copies promised in the above resolution were duly 
received. The Old Testament Company took similar ac- 
tion, and intrusted me with eleven proof copies of the re- 
vised version of the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Levit- 
icus for the use of the eleven members of the American 



xviii INTRODUCTION. 

vision of the Authorized English Version of the Scriptures, the following per- 
sons were present, viz. : 

' Prof. Philip Schaff, D.D. , New York ; Prof. Henry B. Smith, D.D., New 
York ; Prof. Wm, Henry Green, D.D., Princeton, N. J. ; Prof. George Em- 
len Hare, D.D., Philadelphia, Pa. ; Prof. Charles P. Krauth,D.D., Philadel- 
phia ; Kev. Thomas J. Conant, D.D., Brooklyn, N. Y. ; Prof. George E. Day, 
D.D., New Haven, Conn. ; Ezra Abbot, LL.D., Cambridge, Mass. ; Rev. Ed- 
ward A. Washburn, D.D., New York. 

' Dr. Howson, Dean of Chester, was also present by special invitation, and 
took part in the deliberations. 

' Ex-President Woolsey, Prof. Hackett, Prof. Strong, Prof. Stowe, and oth- 
ers, were prevented from attending, but expressed by letter their hearty inter- 
est in the proposed work, and their readiness to co-operate. 

' The meeting was organized by the appointment of Prof. Henry B. Smith 
as Chairman, and Prof. George E. Day as Secretary. ****** 

Constitution. 

4 1. The American Committee, invited by the British Committee engaged 
in the revision of the Authorized English Version of the Holy Scriptures to 
co-operate with them, shall be composed of Biblical scholars and divines in 
the United States. 

' II. This Committee shall have the power to elect its officers, to add to 
its number, and to fill its own vacancies. 

' III. The officers shall consist of a President, a Corresponding Secretary, 
and a Treasurer. The President shall conduct the official correspondence 
with the British revisers. The Secretary shall conduct the home correspond- 
ence. 

' IV. New members of the Committee, and corresponding members, must 
be nominated at a previous meeting, and elected unanimously by ballot. 

' V. The American Committee shall co-operate with the British Compa- 
nies on the basis of the principles and rules of revision adopted by the British 
Committee. 

' VI. The American Committee shall consist of two companies, the one 
for the revision of the Authorized Version of the Old Testament, the other 
for the revision of the Authorized Version of the New Testament. 

' VII. Each Company shall elect its own Chairman and Recording Secre- 
tary. 

' VIII. The British Companies will submit to the American Companies, 
from time to time, such portions of their work as have passed the first revi- 
sion, and the American Companies will transmit their criticisms and sug- 
gestions to the British Companies before the second revision. 

' IX. A joint meeting of the American and British Companies shall be 
held, if possible, in London, before final action. 

' X. The American Committee to pay their own expenses. 

'A communication from Bishop Ellicott, D.D., to Dr. Schaff, dated Oc- 
tober 23, 1871, was read, containing the following resolution of the British 
Committee : 



IXTR OD UCTIOX. xix 

' "Resolution — That the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol be requested to 
communicate with Dr. Schaff to the effect that the work of the New Testa- 
ment revisers is at present ouly tentative and provisional, and that it may 
be considerably altered at the second revision ; but that, upon the assurance 
of Dr. Schaff that the work, so far as it is at present advanced, will be con- 
sidered as strictly confidential, the company will send a sufficient number of 
copies for Dr. Schaff and his brother revisers, for their own private use, the 
copies to be in no way made public beyond themselves. 

' "For this purpose that Dr. Schaff be requested to send the names and 
addresses of the scholars associated with him in this matter so soon as the 
company is completely formed. " ' ***** 

On the evening of the same day the movement was pub- 
licly inaugurated by a meeting in Calvary Church, Fourth 
Avenue, Isew York, at which Dr. Washburn, Dean Howson, 
D.D., and the writer made addresses on the subject of Bible 
Revision before a very large and intelligent audience, in- 
cluding many clergymen from different denominations. 
Full reports of the meeting were published in the Chris- 
tian Intelligencer, the Protestant Churchman, and other 
papers. 

The organization of the American Committee was duly 
reported. Certain difficulties which stood in the way of 
co-operation were removed by farther correspondence and 
personal conference of the writer with the British revisers 
on a recent visit to England. The British Committee, at 
its meeting July 17, 1872, took the following action : 



' Dr. Schaff having communicated to the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol 
the following as the names of the American revisers, .... it was resolved 
that so many copies of the revised version of the first three Gospels be in- 
trusted to Dr. Schaff for the use of the above named, with the request that 
they be regarded as private and confidential, and with the intimation that 
the work itself is provisional and tentative, and likely to undergo considerable 
modification.' 

The copies promised in the above resolution were duly 
received. The Old Testament Company took similar ac- 
tion, and intrusted me with eleven proof copies of the re- 
vised version of the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Levit- 
icus for the use of the eleven members of the American 



x x mm od uctiok 

Company of Old Testament revisers. Other portions of 
the revised version will be forwarded as soon as they are 
finished. 

The American companies will hold their first meeting 
for active work October 4, 1872. The result of their de- 
liberations will in due time be forwarded to the British 
Committee for consideration before the second revision. 

When the whole work shall be completed, it will go to 
the English-speaking churches for their adoption or rejec- 
tion. By its own merits it will stand or fall. We firmly 
believe that it will gradually take the place of the Author- 
ized Version. 

Character of the English Version. The Work proposed. 
In presenting briefly my own views on the subject of 
revision, I have no authority to speak in behalf of the 
American revisers, who have not yet fairly begun their 
work ; but I apprehend no material difficulty with the 
British Committee. I have reason to believe that there is 
a general disposition among us to retain the idiom, gram- 
mar, and vocabulary of the Authorized Version so far as 
is consistent with faithfulness to the Greek and Hebrew 
Scriptures, and with justice to the present stage of the 
English language. 

The popular English Bible is the greatest blessing which 
the Reformation of the sixteenth century bestowed upon 
the Anglo-Saxon race. It is, upon the whole, the best trans- 
lation ever made, not excepting even Jerome's Vulgate 
and Luther's Version. It is not the production of a single 
mind, but of a large number of wise and good men, rep- 
resenting three generations in the most eventful and pro- 
ductive period of modern church history. It is i the pure 
well of English undefiled.' It has formed the style and 
taste of the English classics. It has a hold upon the pop- 



INTRODUCTION. xx i 

ular heart which it can never lose. Its vocabulary and 
phrases, its happy blending of Saxon force and Latin dig- 
nity, its uniform chasteness, earnestness, and solemnity, its 
thoroughly idiomatic tone, its rhythmic flow, its more than 
poetic beauty and harmony, have secured the admiration 
of scholars and the affection of whole churches and nations 
in which it is used. Even in the Komisli communion, a 
distinguished English apostate from Protestantism could 
not forget its marvellous beauty and heavenly music* 

* The remarkable judgment of the late Dr. F. William Faber (often falsely 
attributed to Dr. John Henry Newman) is well worth quoting in full : ' Who 
will say that the uncommon beauty and marvellous English of the Protestant 
Bible is not one of the great strongholds of heresy in this country ? It lives 
on the ear like a music that can never be forgotten, like the sound of church 
bells, which the convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities often 
seem to be almost things rather than mere words. It is part of the national 
mind, and the anchor of national seriousness. Nay, it is worshipped with a 
positive idolatry, in extenuation of whose grotesque fanaticism its intrinsic 
beauty pleads availingly with the man of letters and the scholar. The mem- 
ory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereo- 
typed in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of a man is hidden 
beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments, and all that 
there has been about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good, 
speaks to him for ever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which 
doubt has never dimmed, and controversy never soiled. It has been to him 
all along as the silent, but oh ! how intelligible voice of his guardian angel , 
and in the length and breadth of the land there is not a Protestant, with one 
spark of religiousness about him, whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon 
Bible. And all this is an unhallowed power!' — From Faber's Essay on The 
Interest and Characteristics of the Lives of the Saints, p. 11G, prefixed to a 
Life of St. Francis of Assist (1853), which forms vol. xxv. of the Oratory 
series of the Lives of Modern Saints. I took the quotation from an anony- 
mous reviewer of Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul, in 
the Dublin Review for June, 1853, p. 466. The. Roman Catholic reviewer 
admits (p. 465 sq.) that the ' Douay version, composed as it was under heavy 
difficulties and the greatest disadvantages, is, upon the whole, surprisingly 
accurate and exact [?], though confessedly far from scholar-like as a literary 
performance, and as deficient in pure English idiom as the Protestant version 
is excellent in that particular ; ' but then he goes on to charge the latter with 
doctrinal unfairness, instancing the well-known passages 1 Cor. xi. 27, where 
■)'] (rrii'Tj -6 7rori]pio7^ — often used by Komanists as an argument for the com- 
munion sub una specie — is rendered and; Matt. xix. 11, ob iravrtc. %wpov<rt, 
'all men can not receive the word ;' Gal. i. 18, laroprjaat Herpo\>, ' to see Pe- 
ter. ' 



xxii INTRODUCTION. 



The power and influence of this version can not be esti- 
mated. Being from the very start a truly national work 
for the British Isles, it has gradually assumed, with the En- 
glish language itself, an almost cosmopolitan character and 
importance, and is now used more than any translation in 
all parts of the globe. The British and Foreign Bible So- 
ciety, or the American Bible Society, probably send forth 
more copies of the English Scriptures than are printed in 
all other languages combined. Eternity alone can reveal 
how many millions have been made wise unto salvation 
through the instrumentality of this version. 

To substitute a new popular version for such a work 
would be almost a sacrilege, certainly an ungrateful task 
and inevitable failure. 

But this is not at all the question. The present move- 
ment contemplates no new version, but simply a scholarly 
and conscientious revision, in the spirit, and, as far as pos- 
sible, in the very language, of the old. The object is to 
make a good translation still better, more accurate and 
self-consistent, and to bring it up to the present standard 
of Biblical scholarship. 

The abstract right of revision can not be disputed. It 
is the duty of the Church, especially the Protestant, to give 
the Bible to the people in the best possible form, and to 
adapt existing translations, from time to time, to the .prog- 
ress in Scripture learning and the inevitable changes of 
a living language. Without this right and duty, King 
James's Version of 1611 would not exist at all, for it is if- 
self the result of several revisions, going back— through the 
Bishops' Bible (1568), the Geneva Bible (1557, completed 
1560), Cranmer's Bible (1539), Matthew's (or Eogers's) Bi- 
ble (1537), Coverdale's Bible (1535 and 1537)— to the New 
Testament (with parts of the Old Testament) of Tyndale 



INTR OB UCTIOK xxiii 



(1525-1535)," who is the real author, as well as martyr, of 
the English version,! and, in the former respect, the En- 
glish Luther 4 

The need and desirableness of a new revision are now al- 
most generally admitted, at least by those who are best ac- 
quainted with the Bible in its original languages. The 
most ardent admirers of King James's Version do not claim 
for it perfection and infallibility. It has a very consider- 
able number of errors, defects, and obscurities. It was the 
best translation which could be made in the beginning of 
the seventeenth century, but it can be greatly improved 
with the enlarged facilities of the present age. 

The only debatable question, then, is as to the proper 
time and best mode of undertaking this important and de- 
sirable work. A few years ago many of the most judi- 
cious friends of revision would have said that the pear is 
not ripe yet, although fast ripening ; but the recent move- 
ment in Great Britain settles the question. It combines 
all the needful scholarship, ability, authority, and co-op- 
eration. It presents the most favorable juncture which 
can be desired, and it must be turned to the best account. 
The greatest difficulty was in our sectarian divisions : it has 
been removed by the Spirit of God, who alone can so move 
the hearts of men as to bring Churchmen and Dissent- 
ers, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, Methodists, 
Baptists, and others, together in brotherly harmony and co- 
operation. To miss the glorious opportunity now is indef- 
initely to postpone the great work, or to risk the multipli- 

* For details, see the excellent History of the English Bible, by Professor 
Westcott (one of the British Committee of Revision), London, 1868. 

t Wicliffe's translation was not made from the original Greek and Hebrew, 
but from the Latin Vulgate, and was little used, if used at all, by Tyndale. 

% Westcott, 1. c, p. 66, pays him the following just tribute : ' Not one self- 
ish thought mixed with his magnificent devotion. No treacherous intrigues 
ever shook his loyalty to his king ; no intensity of distress ever obscured his 
faith in Christ.' 



x x i v JJSfTM OB UCTIOX. 

cation of sectarian versions — as there are already a Baptist 
and a Unitarian New Testament. Let us by all means 
have an oecumenical revision now when we can have it, 
which shall be a new and stronger bond of union among 
the many branches of Anglo-Saxon Christendom, and make 
the good old Bible clearer and dearer to the people. 

Improvements. 
The improvements which can be made, without in the 
least impairing the idiom and beauty, or disturbing the 
sacred associations, of the Authorized Version, may be con- 
sidered under the following heads, as needing revision : the 
Text ; Errors ; Inaccuracies ; Inconsistencies ; Archaisms ; 
Proper Names ; Accessories ; Arrangement. 

1. The Text. 
To restore, from the best critical resources now made 
accessible, an older and purer text in the place of the com- 
paratively late and corrupt textus receptus. In other words, 
to substitute, in the New Testament, an ante-Nicene for a 
mediaeval text. 

The Hebrew text, having been settled long ago by the Masorets, presents 
very little difficulty. It is stated that there are only 1314 various readings 
of importance in the Old Testament, and that only 147 of them affect the 
sense. With critical conjectures (such as proposed by Hitzig, Merx, etc.) a 
popular version has nothing to do. When the Authorized Version follows 
the Septuagint and the Vulgate against the Hebrew (as in the important pas- 
sage Job xix. 26), the Hebrew text must of course have the preference. 

The case is very different in the New Testament. The Authorized Ver- 
sion, like all other Protestant versions, is made from the 'received text,' so 
called, which dates from the first printed edition of the Greek Testament by 
Erasmus (1516), especially his fourth edition (1527, which contains some 
emendations in the Apocalypse, derived from the Complutensian Polyglot), 
was several times re-edited, with a few improvements, by Stephens, of Paris, 
and then by Beza, of Geneva, and boldly proclaimed the 'textus ab omnibus 
receptus' by the enterprising publishers, Elzevir, of Leyden (in their second 
edition, 1633), and which ruled, almost undisputed, as a part of Protestant 
orthodoxy (as the Latin Vulgate as a part of Romish orthodoxy), until, after 
Bentley and Bengel had shaken confidence in it, it was set aside by Lachmann 



INTR 01) UCTIOX. XXY 

(1S31) and his followers, to make room for an older and better text since 
brought to light.* 

The 'received text' was hastily derived, in the infant period of the printed 
Bible, from a few and faulty cursive MSS.,when the best uncial MSS. and 
the oldest versions (except a corrupt text of the Vulgate) were not yet known, 
before the patristic quotations were examined, and before even the first prin- 
ciples of textual criticism were understood.! 

Since that time an immense material for textual criticism has been gath- 
ered, compared, weighed, and sifted by the indefatigable labors of Mill, Ben- 
gel, Wetstein, Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and others. "We 
have now as complete an apparatus as is necessary to settle the text in all its 
essential features, and there is no prospect that any new discoveries (even as 
important as that of the Codex Sinaiticofl in 1859) will materially alter the 
result, unless some future Tischendorf should be so fortunate as to find the 
apostolic autographs ; but this, in view of the perishable nature of papyrus, 
on which they were written, is next to impossible. Over 1500 MSS. of the 
Greek Testament have been more or less compared.} and from 100,000 to 
1-20,000 various readings have been accumulated from all textual sour- 
the present day. Fortunately, these variations do not unsettle a single article 
of Christian faith and duty; they only establish the essential integrity of the 
apostolic text, and increase the facilities of determining, approximately, the 
original reading, without resorting (as is the case with classical authors) to 
precarious subjective conjectures. On the most important variations which 
affect the sense, and which alone deserve consideration in a popular ver.-ion, 
the leading critics of the day are now quite or nearly agreed. From the un- 
cial MSS. (especially the two olde.-t, the Sinaitic and the Vatican, or X and B, 
both made accessible now to all by the qnasi fac-simile editions of Tischen- 

* Tvndale used the edition of Erasmus, the Geneva revisers the Latin ver- 
sion of Beza (first ed. 1 557). Comp. "Westcott, Hist, of the En>j. Bible, p. 288. 
On the precise Greek text from which King James's revision is derived, see 
the NoTr; below. On the Continent, the first Elzevir or Leyden edition of 1 624 
fTrom which the second edition of 1 G:3.*i differs very slightly; is understood to 
be the 'received text ;' while in England the term is more frequently applied 
to the third edition of Robert Stephens, which appeared in 1550, called the 
' royal edition.' The Greek text in both is substantially the same. Including 
minute variations in orthography, they differ in 278 places ( Scrivener, N. T. 
Cambr. 1860, p. vi ; Westcott, in Smith's Bibl. Diet. iii. 2132, Am. edit.). 
"Where the Elzevir edition differs from Stephens, it generally agrees with Beza. 

t Beza had, it is true, two uncial codd., viz., Codex D or Bezte, of the 
Gospels and Acts, and Cod. D Claromontanus, of the Epistles, and knew also 
the Feshito and Arabic versions, but he made very little use of them, being 
more concerned for his Latin translation and notes. His immediate success- 
ors neglected even these important sources of criticism. 

X Mr. Scrivener (Introd to Bibl. Crit., p. 22o) states the total number of 
manuscripts of the Greek Testament known and used to be 1583. of which 
127 are uncial, H.">G cursive, but most of the uncial and many of the cursive 
ire incomplete, and G7 must be deducted for being counted double. 



XXY i • INTRODUCTION. 

dorf and Vercellone), the earliest versions (especially the Itala, Vulgate, and 
Peshito), and the quotations of the Kicene and ante-Mcene fathers (Origen, 
Tertullian, Irenseus, etc.), we are now able to reconstruct, with a tolerable de- 
gree of certainty, the oldest attainable text, which is, upon the whole, much 
simpler and stronger than the post-Nicene and mediaeval textus receptus, and 
free from liturgical and other glosses. 

This ante-Nicene text should be made the basis of the revision, at least in 
all such cases where, as Ellicott says, ' critical evidence and the consent of 
the best editors point out the necessity of the change.' 

This canon must, of course, exclude the spurious passage of the three wit- 
nesses, 1 John v. 7, which was omitted also at first by Erasmus, Luther, and 
Tyndale.* The doxology of the Lord's Prayer, Matt. vi.,will be less easily 
surrendered. Sections which seem to be part of primitive apostolic tradition, 
though not of apostolic composition, as the conclusion of Mark (xvi. 9-20), 
and the pericope, John vii. 53, to viii. 1 1 , may be retained in brackets or in 
italics. In debatable readings, where the witnesses are equally or almost 
equally divided, as between iiovoyevrjg Seog and povoyevrjg vlug, John i. 18, 
the reading of the textus receptus should be retained, but the variation marked 
on the margin. Sometimes doubtful readings of great doctrinal importance 
receive new confirmation, as tov Seov (for Kvpiov) in Acts xx. 28, which is 
sustained by Aleph and B, and furnishes one of the strongest arguments 
for the divinity of Christ, amply compensating for the loss of Stag for og in 
1 Tim. iii. 16 (probably a quotation from a primitive Christian hymn).t 
The genuineness of the Epistle to the Ephesians receives new support from 
the Sinaitic MS. by its omission of the words ' in Ephesus' in the address 
(i. 1), as it corroborates the view that it was a circular letter, and therefore 
free from those personal allusions and salutations which we should otherwise 
expect. 

The text of the Apocalypse, of which we have fewer sources than of any 
other book of the N. T., has been cleared up in several important passages by 
the Codices Alexandrinus (A), Ephraemi Syri rescriptus (C), Sinaiticus (X), 
Vaticanus No. 2066, a manuscript of the seventh or eighth century, called B 
of the Apocalypse (the great Cod. B Vaticanus does not contain the Apoca- 
lypse), the uncial palimpsest (P) discovered and made legible by Tischendorf 
in 1862, X and published in the sixth volume of his Monumenta sacra inedita 
(1 869), and the rediscovery by Prof. Delitzsch of Eeuchlin's Codex§ — the only 
one for the Apocalypse which Erasmus used for his first edition, and used with 

* Tyndale's edition of 1534, as given in Bagster's English Hexapla, has the 
disputed passage in italics. 

f Tischendorf, however, in his 8th crit. ed. , gives the preference to Kvpiov, 
on the authority of A, C*, D, E, Irenosus (Lat. interpr.), etc. 

X When Tischendorf applied his chemical process to the palimpsest, the 
Greek Archimandrite (now Bishop) Porfiri Uspenski, who had brought this 
and other MSS. from his Oriental travels, exclaimed ' Ecce Lazarus e se- 
pulchro redxixV 

§ See Delitzsch, Handschriftliche Funde, 1861 and 1862. Tregelles has 
also examined this Codex, which was found in the library of the Prince of 
(Ettingen-Wallerstein. 



INTRODUCTION xxv ii 

great haste. I will mention a few examples. In ch. i. 9, ' who am also 
your brother,' the improper ' also 1 rests on a mere misunderstanding of Eras- 
mus's copyist. In ch. i. 11, the words ' which are in Asia' are an interpola- 
tion of Erasmus from the Vulgate : quoz sunt in Asia. Similar additions of 
Erasmus from the Latin, which have no support in the Greek text, are found 
in ch. ii. 3 (' and hast not fainted,' ' et non defecisti), in ii. 20 (' a few things,' 
' pauca), in ii. 24 (the disturbing 'and'), and in several other passages. In 
ch. v. 10, the Greek reads ' thou hast made them (avrovc, i. e. the four and 
twenty elders) kings (a kingdom) and priests unto our God,' and ' they (the 
elders') 'shall rule {fiaaikivaovcsiv) upon the earth;' but the A. V. turns 
' them into ' us,' and ' they' into ' we,' because Erasmus followed here the lat- 
er corrupted text of the Vulgate in opposition to Keuchlin's Greek MS. In 
xvi. 14, 'the kings of the earth and of the whole world,' the superfluous 
words ' of the earth and' are to be traced to a mistake of the transcriber, as 
the Greek reads simply rovg fiaoikuq rr]c oikov/j.&v?]q b\?/c. In ch. xvii. 8, 
the perplexing translation, ' the beast that was, and is not, and yet is (from 
the false reading Ka'nvtp tan), must now be corrected into ' the beast that 
was, and is not, and yet shall come (the best authorities reading teal Trdpearai 
— Cod. Sin. Kcti izakiv iraptorai, shall come again. Compare piXXti avafiai- 
vuv Ik tJjq afivoaov, in the preceding clause). * 

Note on the Greek Text of the English Version. — It is a question 
of some interest and importance to ascertain what edition of the Greek text 
was chiefly used by King James's translators. They left us no direct infor- 
mation ; they paid little or no attention to textual criticism, which was then 
in its infancy, but we know what resources were then available. As they 
finished their work (1611) thirteen years before the first Elzevir edition 
(1624) appeared, they must have used the later editions of Stephens and 
Beza, which had then superseded the editions of Erasmus. 

The third edition of Robert Stephens, called editio regia, was printed in 
Paris, and the fourth at Geneva, 1551 ; the latter, Avith the exception of a 
few passages, is a mere reprint, in inferior style, but it is the first which con- 
tains our versicular division. The text of Stephens (1.550) has often been 
reproduced in England, most recently by F. H. Scrivener (1860 and 1872), 
who gives also the readings of Beza (professedly of 1565 ; but see the letter 
of Prof. Abbot below), of the Elzevirs (1624), Tischendorf, Lachmann, and 
Tregelles. 

Erom Beza there appeared, before his death (1603), four folio editions of 
the Greek Testament, including the Vulgate, his new Latin translation, and 
exegetical notes, printed by Henry Stephens at Geneva, t and dedicated to 

* Comp. an art. of Dr. Conant on the Greek Text of the Apocalypse, in the 
Baptist Quarterly, vol. iv. No. 2, and Tregelles's Apocalypse, edit. 1844, and 
now his last edition, concluding his Greek Testament, 1872. Tischendorf 
lias not yet completed the second volume of his eighth edition, which will 
contain the Apocalypse. 

t We have from Beza also several small editions, which omit the Vulgate 
(except in the 3d ed.), and give marginal glosses extracted from his com- 
mentary. They are dedicated to Prince Conde. Beuss (Geschichte des N. 



x x v i i i INTR 0J) UCTIOK 

Queen Elizabeth, viz. edit. i. (called ii.*), A.D. 1565, which is based upon 
the fourth edition of Stephens; ed. ii. (in.), 1582, much improved by the 
readings of the important Codices Bezse (D Gosp.) and Claromontanus (D 
Epp.), and the comparison of the Peshito and Arabic versions ; ed. iii. (iv.), 
1589 (also under the date 1588), chiefly a reprint of the third; ed. iv. (v.), 
1598, which differs but little from the third, is less accurate, and was re- 
printed at Cambridge, 1642.f 

It is almost certain, at the outset, that the last editions of Beza were the 
main basis of the A. V. , not only because they were the latest and best, but 
also because Beza, the surviving patriarch of the reformers, exerted, by his 
Latin version and exegetical notes, a marked influence upon our translators )% 
even his explanatory or harmonistic interpolations in Apoc. xi. 1 (icai 6 dyye- 
Xog elcrrfjicu)', Matt. i. 11 ; John xix. 13, found a place in the text, or at least 
in the margin of the A. V. 

A closer examination confirms this supposition , but there is as yet no 
agreement as to the precise extent to which the A. V. depends upon Beza, or 
sides with Stephens, or dissents from both. Scrivener {A Supplement to the 
Authorized Version, pp. 7, 8), Westcott (art. New Test, in Smith's Bible Diet. 
iii. 2132, note, Am. ed.), and Ellicott {Revision of the N. T. ch. ii.) main- 
tain that the A. V. is derived from Beza's third (1582) or fourth (1589) edi- 
tion, and from Stephens's third (1550) or fourth (1551), and that in some GO 
places it sides with Beza against Stephens, in some 28 with Stephens against 
Beza, while it differs from both in less than half a dozen places. But ac- 
cording to Hudson {Critical Greek and English Concordance of the N. T. p. 
xiii.), who takes Beza's fifth edition (1598) as the basis, the A.V. agrees with 
Beza versus Stephens's third in about 80 places, with Stephens versus Beza 
in about 40, and departs from both in about a dozen places. Prof. Abbot, 
of Harvard University, who has access to all the editions of Beza (except the 
third, 1582) and Stephens, and who, of all American scholars, is best qualified 
to ascertain the facts in the case, has at my request carefully investigated 
this point, and kindly furnished me with another statement, which, though 
not professing to be absolutely exhaustive, is more complete and accurate 
than any that has hitherto been published, to the effect that ' the Authorized 
Version agrees with Beza's text of 1589 against Stephens's of 1550 in about 
90 places ; with Stephens against Beza in about 40 ; and in from 30 to 40 
places, in most of which the variations are of a trivial character, it differs 

T.) says that they vary in the text, and were printed in Geneva, though often 
erroneously assigned to Paris. 

* Beza counts his Latin edition of 1557 (the title-page gives 1556, the last 
page 1557) as editio prima ; but, as it does not give the Greek text, it ought 
not to be counted. 

f Tregelles, Scrivfener, Westcott, and Bleek {Einleitung in d. N. T. p. 776), 
following Mill and Michaelis, speak also of an edition of 1576. But there is 
no place for such an edition in either series of Beza's texts. Wetstein {Pro- 
leg, p. 146) and Reuss {Geschichte des N. T. p. 411) give the correct account. 

% As he had done before upon the Genevan version (1557 and 1560). 
See the examples in Westcott's History of the English Bible, p. 294 seq. 



IXTR OD UCTIOX. xx i x 

from both.' With his permission, I will give the specifications from a letter 
to me, dated Cambridge, Mass., Sept. 23, 1872, for which he deserves the 
thanks of Biblical scholars : 

'I. The A.V. agrees with Beza against Stephens in Matt. xxi. 7; xxiii. 
13, 14. Mark vi. 29 ; viii. 14, 2-1 ; ix. 40 ; xii. 20 ; xiii. 28. Luke i. 35 ; ii. 
22 ; iii. 23, 35 (vi. 9, trans, and note)-, viii. 29 (not trans.); x. G (not trans.), 
22; xv. 2G; xvii. 3G ; xx. 47. John viii. 25; xii. 17; xiii. 31; xvi. 33; 
xviii. 24. Acts (v. 24, trans, and note) ix. 35 ; xv. 32 (?) ; xvii. 25 ; xxii. 
25 ; xxiv. 13, 14 (?), 18, 19 ; xxv. 5 ; xxvi. 3, 18 ; xxvii. 12, 13. Rom. vii. 
G ; viii. 11 ; xii. 11 ; xvi. 20, 27 (?). 1 Cor. v. 11 ; xv. 31. 2 Cor. iii. 1 ; 
v. 4 ; vi. 1 5 ; vii. 1 2, 1 G ; x. 10 ; xi. 1 ; xiii. 4. Eph. vi. 7. Col. i. 2, 24 ; 
ii. 13. 1 Thess. (ii. 13, trans, and note) ii. 15. 2 Thess. ii. 4. 1 Tim. i. 4. 
Tit. ii. 10. Ileb. ix. 1,2; x. 10; xii. 22, 23, punct. James ii. 18 ; iv. 13 a , 
13 b ; v. 12. 1 Pet. i. 4 ; ii. 21 ; iii. 11, 21 (?). 2 Pet. iii. 7. 1 John i. 4 ; 
ii. 23 (A.V. in italics); iii. 1G. 2 John 3. 3 John 7. Jude 19, 24. Rev. 
ii. 14 ; iii. 1 ; v. 11 ; vii. 3, 10; viii. 11; xi. 1, 2, 14; xiii. 3 ; xiv. 18 ; xvi. 
5, 14. In Dr. Westcott's list, in Smith's Diet, of the Bible [art. New Test.'], 
Acts xxi. 8 ; Rev. vii. 2, 14 ; xvii. 4, and in Scrivener's list (Sup/>le?nent to the 
Aut/i. Version, p. 8), Rev. xix. 14, seem to be erroneously placed here. Matt, 
ix. 33 ; Acts i. 4, are uncertain. 

'II. The A.V. agrees with Stephens, in preference to Beza's text of 15S9, 
in Matt. i. 23 (vi. 1, Beza's trans, and note; his text is Stephens's). Mark 
i. 21 ; xvi. 14 (?), 20. Luke vii. 45 ; ix. 15. John iv. 5 ; xviii. 20. Acts 
ii. 36 ; iv. 25, 27, 36 ; vii. 16 ; xvi. 7, 17; xxi. 11 ; xxv. 6 ; xxvi, 8, punct. 
Rom. i. 29 ; v. 17; viii. 21, punct. ; xi. 28. 1 Cor. vii. 29 , xi. 22, punct. ; 
xv. 55. 2 Cor. i. 6 ; iii. 14 (?) ; viii. 24. Gal. iv. 17. Phil. i. 23 ; ii. 24 ; 
iii. 20. Col. i. 2. 1 Tim. vi. 15. 2 Tim. ii. 22. Tit. ii. 7. Ileb. ix. 28 ; 
x. 2. James iii. 6. 1 Pet. v. 10. 2 Pet. i. 1 (o-om'/poc rjfi&v). Rev. vi. 12 ; 
ix. 19 (but Beza's trans, and note agree with Stephens). In Dr. Westcott's 
list, 1 Pet. ii. 21 ; iii. 21 ; 2 Pet. ii. 12; Rev. ix. 5; xii. 14; xiv. 2; xviii. 
6 ; xix. 1, are wrongly placed here. 1 Cor. iii. 3 ; x. 28, adduced by Scriv- 
ener, appear to be merely cases of typographical error in Beza's text. Matt, 
xx. 15; 1 Cor. xi. 1 ; Rev. iv. 10, are not decisive. 

'III. The A.V. follows a reading found neither in Stephens (1550) or Beza 
(1589), in Matt. ii. 11 ; x. 10. Mark iv. 18 ; vi. 4 (?) ; xiv. 43. Luke iii. 
31 ; vi. 37 (Vulg.) ; viii. 31 ; xvii. 35 ; xx. 31, 32 ; xxii. 45 (?). John v. 5 ; 
vii. 9, 12 ; viii. 6, 42 ; ix. 25 ; xii. 13, 26, 34 (?) ; xvi. 25 (A.V. ed. 1611) ; 
xviii. 1 (?), 15 (?). Acts iii. 3 ; vi. 3 (?) ; vii. 44 (Vulg.) ; viii. 13 ; xix. 20 
(Vulg.) ; xxi. 8 (Beza's trans, and note) ; xxvi. 6 (?) ; xxvii. 29. Rom. vi. 3 
(mere oversight?). Eph. vi. 24 (A.V. ed. 1611). Phil. iv. 12. 1 Thess. v. 4 
(Vulg.). Philem. 7. James iv. 15. 2 Pet. i. 1 (Zipujv, and ypwv omitted 
after Qt ov) ; ii. 9. Rev. vii. 2 (?) ; xvii. 4. 

'A collation of Beza's fifth edition (1598) is given in Bagster's Critical New 
Testament, Greek and English (1842). That edition is not accurately print- 
ed, but the intentional changes from the text of 1 589 are few. 

' It is necessary to observe that the collation of Beza's edition of 1 565, given 
by Scrivener in his Introduction (pp. 304-311) and in his Greek Testament, 
is not to be trusted. It agrees neither with the octavo nor the folio edition 
published by Beza in 1565. It is impossible that he should have used the 
text of either of those editions in making the collation which he has given. 
He has mistaken a copy of some other edition (perhaps wanting the title- 
page, or with a false title-page supplied) for the real Beza of 1565. The 
readings ascribed, in his Introduction, to Beza, 1565, differ from Beza's folio 
edition of that year in 111 places, but in only about 15 places from his octavo 
editions of 158*0 and 1590. Thev do not agree so well with the edition of 
1567. That of 1 603 I have not seen. 



xxx INTRODUCTION. 

' The erroneous references of Dr. Westcott pointed out above were appar- 
ently derived from Scrivener's collation ; and in a note in the American edi- 
tion of Smith's Bible Dictionary (p. 2182), misled by Scrivener, I wrongly re- 
ferred them to Beza's text of 1565.' 



2. Errors. 
To correct acknowledged errors, whether of typography, 
or English Grammar, or translation. 

(a.) Misprints. 

Examples : ' Strain at a gnat,' for ' strain out,' Matt, xxiii. 21 (SivXiZovrec, 
tov Ku)vu)7ra) ;* — ' broidered' (the ed. of 1611 and other early edd. : ' broid- 
ed'), for 'braided {plaited) hair,' 1 Tim. ii. 9 ; — 'and she went into the city,' 
for 'he,' Ruth iii. 15 (see the Hebrew)-, — ' awake my love, till he please,' for 
'she,' Cant. ii. 7 (in the Hebrew). 

Many other typographical errors of the edition of 1611, Avhich was far from 
being correct, have long since been silently removed by subsequent editions, 
in England and in America, yet not so as to secure uniformity ; e. g. : 'hoops 
of the pillars,' for 'hooks' (Exod. xxxviii. 11); 'plaine,' for 'plague' (Lev. xiii. 
56); 'Jet' the roll,' for 'fetch' (Jer. xxxvi. 21); 'shewed them by the proph- 
ets,' for 'hewed' (Hos. vi. 5); 'rejected verses,' for ' recited' (Ecclus. xliv. 5); 
'approved to death,' for 'appointed' (1 Cor. xii. 28); 'helps in governments,' 
for 'helps, governments' (1 Cor. xii. 28) ; 'vinegar,' for 'vineyard' (Luke xiii. 
7, in the so-called ' vinegar edition' of Oxford, 171 7). t The variations of the 
second edition, 1613, from the first, 1611, amount to about 375; in Dr. Blay- 
ney's edition of 1769, which is regarded as the standard edition, 116 errors 
Avere detected by the editors of the Eyre and Strahan edition, 1813. The 
committee appointed by the American Bible Society in 1818 found many er- 
rors and inconsistencies in the best English editions.^ 

* Dean Alford, in his Commentary, defends the Authorized Version by the 
strained explanation: 'strain (out the wine) at (the occurrence of) a gnat,' 
but in his English version of the Greek Testament (1869) he adopts out for 
at. All the other English versions (except that of Bheims) read ' strain out.' 
Bishop Lowth remarks : ' The impropriety of the preposition has wholly de- 
stroyed the meaning of the phrase,' which refers to the use of a strainer. 
See my annotations to Lange on Matthew, p. 408, note 16, p. 413. 

t In a copy of the second issue of the edition of 1611 (in possession of Dr. 
Eadie, at Glasgow) I saw even Judas for Jesus in Matt. xxvi. 36. In the 
first issue, twenty-one words of Exod. xiv. 10 are printed twice. In an edi- 
tion of 1613, the word not is omitted in Lev. xix. 10 ; 1 Cor. xi. 17 ; and 2 
Tim. iv. 16. 

X See the Report of the History and Recent Collation of the English Ver- 
sion of the Bible : presented by the Committee on Versions to the Board of 
Managers of the American Bible Society, and adopted May 1, 1851, p. 11 
seq. The Committee on Versions (including such spholars as Drs. Edward 
Bobinson, Samuel H. Turner, and John M'Clintock) spent three years of 
labor and pains in correcting misprints, and improving the orthography, cap- 



INTRODUCTION. xxx j 

The words 'ware of (Acts xiv. 6 ; Matt. xxiv. 50 ; Neh. x. 31), for 'aware 
of (Cant. vi. 12; Jer. 1. 24; Luke xi. 44) ; 'horse bridles,' for 'horses bri- 
dles' (so the Greek), Kev. xiv. 20; comp. 'horse heels,' Gen. xlix. 17, and 
' horse hoofs, ' Judges v, 22 ; and ' throughly, ' for ' thoroughly, ' which have been 
corrected in some editions, are not misprints, but archaisms. The same is 
true of 'John Baptist,' for 'John the Baptist' (comp. Matt. xiv. 8 ; xvi. 14; 
xvii. 13 ; Mark vi. 24, 25 ; viii. 28 ; Luke vii. 20, 28, 33, in Tyndale, Cran- 
mer, the Genevan, and the Bishops' Bible) ; ' diddest,' for 'didst' (in Acts vii. 
28, found also in Tyndale, Cranmer, the Genevan, and the Bishops' Bible), 
1 soinetimes,' for 'some time 1 (i. e. once, formerly, Eph. v. 8). But these ar- 
chaisms should all be removed, and they have been corrected in many editions. 

(b.) Errors of English Grammar (which is not as good as the vocabulary 
of the Authorized Version). 

Examples : Cherubims (confusion of Heb. with Eng. plural), for cheruhim or 
cherubs; as also seraphims, Nethinims, Anahims (Gen. iii. 24; Isa. vi. 2, G; 
Heb. ix. 5, etc.). — 'Whom say ye that I am,' for Who (Matt. xvi. 15 ; Mark 
viii. 27, 29).— His (archaic), for its (Matt. v. 13; Mark ix. 50; Luke xiv. 
34, etc.). — 'This people who knoweth not,' for 'know not' (John vii. 49). — 
'Ye should have hearkened unto me . . . and to have gained,' etc., for 'and 
(so) have gained,' etc. (Acts xxvii. 21). 

(c.) Mistranslations. 

Matt. v. 21, 27, 33, 'by them of old time,' instead of 'to them' (ro7c ap- 
Xaioig, to the ancients, is taken as dative by all the English versions except 
the Authorized, which followed Beza ; the ablative use is very rare and ques- 
tionable). 

Matt. x. 4, and Mark iii. 18, ' Simon the Canaanite,' instead of ' Simon of 
Cana (the village in Galilee, which, however, would require Kavirng rather 
than KavaviTng), or, better, 'the Zealot' (=Zn\u)Tr]c), compare Luke vi. 15; 
Acts i. 13; Numb. xxv. 11. The American Bible Society's edition of 1852 
had substituted Cananite, which was afterward changed back to Canaanite. 

Matt. xiv. 8, 'And she being before instructed (from the Vulgate pro?mo- 
nitd) of her mother,' instead of 'instigated (or led on, induced, aufgestachelt, 
angestiftet, irpofiifiaaQuaa) by her mother.' 

Matt, xxviii. 19, ' Baptizing them in the name of the Father,' etc., instead 
of ' into the name' (e i c to ovopa, not Iv rip ovofiari), i. e. into the covenant 
relationship and communion with the triune God. So also 1 Cor. i. 13, 
'baptized in the name of Paul,' for 'into' (rig to uvo/xa UavXov) ; Acts viii. 

ital letters, words in italics, punctuation, and headings of columns and chap- 
ters, but the American Bible Society was induced by a majority of its man- 
agers to cancel the revised edition thus prepared (1852), on the ground of 
alleged want of constitutional authority, and popular dissatisfaction with a 
number of the changes made, especially in the headings of chapters (as sub- 
stituting Messiah and Sion, in the O. T., for Christ and Church). Some fruits 
of their labor, however, remain, and many inconsistencies in the spelling of 
proper names, in the use of the vocative and the optative oh, and of the in- 
definite article (now a house, a hill, a holy, now an house, etc.), are rectified 
in the editions of the American Bible Society since 1860. See the Report 
of the Committee on Versions, appointed in 1858. 



xxxii INTRODUCTION. 

15 ; xix. 5. The false rendering of the English and other versions arises front 
the Vulgate (in nomine; Tertullian had it correctly in nomeii); but in other 
passages on baptism the English Version renders the preposition elg correctly, 
viz. Rom. vi. 3, 4 ; 1 Cor. x. 2 ; xii. 13 ; Gal. iii. 27; Acts xix. 3.* 

Luke xxiii. 15, 'nothing worthy of death is done unto him' (larlv irtTrpay- 
p'evov avTijj), for ' hath been done by him' (Jesus). 

John viii. 58, ' Before Abraham was, I am,' instead of ' was born,' or ' made,'' 
or ' became.'' There is an important distinction between yevsoScu, which sig- 
nifies temporal or created existence, beginning in time and presupposing pre- 
vious non-existence, and tlvai, which expresses here, in the present tense, the 
eternal, uncreated existence of the Divine Logos. The same distinction is 
observed in the prologue of John, where i]v is applied to the Logos, ver. 1 , 
iyevtro to the genesis of the world, ver. 3, the birth of John the Baptist, ver. 
6, and the incarnation of the Logos, ver. 14. f 

John x. 16, 'one fold (following the ovile of the Vulgate, which might fa- 
vor a narrow ecclesiasticism) and one shepherd,' instead of ' there will be one 
flock (fxia TToifAvn, not avXrj ; comp. ver. 16), one shepherd.' (Tyndale was 
correct here.) J 

John xiii. 2, ' Supper being ended' (which is inconsistent with ver. 12 and 
ver. 26, where the meal is still going on), for * the meal (Suttvov was the prin- 
cipal meal of the ancients, and corresponds to our late dinner) being about to 
begin,' or ' having begun' (yivopsvov, at. yevopsvov). 

John xiv. 18, 'comfortless,' for ' orphans' (op^avoi). 

John xvi. 8, ' reprove,' for ' convince' (tXeyxeiv, which implies both a convin- 
cing unto salvation and a convicting unto condemnation. 

Acts ii. 47, 'such as should be saved,' instead of 'were being saved,' or 
' were in the way of salvation' (rovg aoj^opsvovg, which signifies a progressive 
condition, not a final determination). 

Acts xii. 4, 'Easter' (a heathen or Christian festival), for the Jewish 'Pass- 
over' (Traaxa)- 

Acts xvii. 22, 'in all things ye are too superstitious,' instead of ' very religious 
(deimdaifiovEOTspovg ; Beza correctly: religiosiores, De Wette : sehr gottes- 
furchtiq). The A. V. makes Paul commence his address to the Athenians, 
contrary to his custom, with a reproach or an insult, while, in fact, he compli- 
ments them for their religiousness, with a delicate hint of their excess in a 
wrong direction, and makes this the starting-point for preaching to them the 
' unknown God,' whom ' they worshipped' (not ' ignorantly,' but) 'unknowing- 
ly' or ' unknowing' (ayvoovvreg, with evident allusion to ayvwvrij) &£<£). 

Bom. i. 20, 'his eternal power and Godhead,' for godhood, divinity, divine 
majesty (Gottlichkeit, BeLorng, not Sreorng'). 

Bom. iii. 25, 'for the remission of sins,' instead of ' pretermission, ' or, as 

* See Alford, in loc, and my annotations in Lange on Matthew, p. 558. 

t Comp. my annotations in Lange on John, p. 54, 64, 79, 298. 

t Alford, in loc. : ' The pia Ttoipvn is remarkable — not p.ia avXrj, as charac- 
teristically but erroneously rendered in the English Version : not onefold, but 
one flock; no one exclusive inclosure of an outward Church, but one flock, 
all knowing the one Shepherd, and known of him. ' Comp. my remarks in 
Lange on John, p. 323. 



INTMODUCTIOK xxxiii 

the margin of the A.V. has it, ' the passing over (irdptaig, not to be confound- 
ed with dtpeaig). 

Rom. xiii. 2, and 1 Cor. xi. 29, 'damnation' (altogether too strong), instead 
of 'judgment 1 (icpipa, not tcardicpifxa). 

1 Thess. v. 22, 'abstain from all appearance of evil' (so also Luther, Calvin, 
Grotius, Wordsworth, but contrary to the meaning of ddog), instead of ' ev- 
ery form,' or ' all kind of evil' (correct in the Geneva Version). 

2 Thess. ii. 7, 'the mystery of iniquity,' for ' lawlessness' {fxvarr]piov Tt}g 
dvopiag). 

1 Tim. vi. 5, ' gain is godliness,' instead of ' godliness is gain' (as Coverdale 
renders Tropiapov elvai ty\v tho'ifiuav; comp. for a similar position of the pred- 
icate without the article John i. 1, S-eoc y\v 6 Xoyog, and iv. 24, nvevpa 6 5t6g). 

1 John v. 15, 'He hear us' (which may be a misprint, or an old use of the 
subjunctive), for ' heareth' {clkovii). 

Heb. ii. 16, 'He took not on him the nature of angels ; but he took on him 
the seed of Abraham, 'a double error, instead of 'he helpeth, doth help,' or 
'rescue, deliver, lay hold upon' (which is the true meaning of tiriXapfidviTai, 
now generally adopted in place of the older interpretation).* 

Heb. xi. 13, 'embraced them' (the promises), for 'greeted' or 'hailed' them 
from afar (firj Xafiovrtg Tag 'nrayyiXiag, dXXd 7r6ppuj$ev avrdg idovreg, icai 
dairaadptvoi, and thus dying Kara nionv, to embrace and enjoy the prom- 
ises hereafter). 

The frequent word Saipoviov, a demon or evil spirit, is usually rendered 
devil (Matt. vii. 22 ; ix. 33, 34 ; x. 8 ; xii. 24, and often), and daipoviov f x«v, to 
have a devil, and thus the distinction between the Prince of darkness (6 did(5o- 
\og,6 Haravdg) and his subordinate servants is obliterated. The phrase cat- 
poviov ix Etv refers to the popular belief in demoniacal possessions, and is ma- 
lignantly applied to Christ, John viii. 48, 49 ; x. 20, 21 ; but in the passage 
John vii. 20 it seems used of Christ, and Matt. xi. 18 of John the Baptist, 
compassionately in the milder sense, ' he has a spirit of melancholy, he la- 
bors under a hallucination.' 

'AvaicXLvopai and dvaKupai, to recline, at table (on a couch or triclinium, 
according to the well-known Oriental custom, are falsely rendered to sit or 
sit down (Matt. viii. 11 ; ix. 10 ; Mark xiv. 18 ; Luke vii. 36 ; xiii. 29, etc.). 

The coins, weights, and measures are very loosely translated, as Spaxpf] 
(an Attic silver coin equal to the Eoman denarius, worth about 16 American 
cents) by 'piece' of silver, didpaxpov (a double drachm or half shekel of the 
Jews) by tribute-money, tribute (Matt. xvii. 24), and arar^p (double the for- 
mer, or equivalent to a Jewish shekel) by 'apiece of money' (Matt. xvii. 27); 
but more frequently they are mistranslated. So dnvdpiov (denarius), & Ro- 
man silver coin equivalent to the Attic drachma, used in the Gospels almost 
always for a large sum (Matt. xx. 2, 9, 10, 13 ; xxii. 19 ; Mark vi. 37; xiv. 
5 ; Luke vii. 41 ; John vi. 7 ; xii. 5 ; Rev. vi. 6), is translated penny, when 
franc or shilling would come much nearer its absolute, and falls far short of 
its relative, value at the time of Christ. A 'penny' would indeed be miserable 
wages for a day's labor (Matt. xx. 2), and 'three hundred pence' a poor sum 

* See notes of Moll and Kendrick in Lange on Hebrews, Am. ed. pp. 60, 69. 

c 



xxx i v . INTRODUCTION. 

for the precious ointment of Mary, in her ever-memorable deed of love (John 
xii. 5). Denary would require a marginal note ; silverling (or silver-piece), 
though rather indefinite, might be used, as it is found in the A.V. in Isa. vii. 
23.* 

'Aaadpiov, a penny (its exact value is a cent and a half), and KodpdvTijg 
(quadrans), farthing {Heller), are both translated alike, although the latter is 
only one fourth part of the former. ' Measure 1 is used for x°~ ivi %> (about a 
quart), adrov, a satum or seah, fidroe, the bath or ephah, and Kopog, a cor or 
homer (equal to 15 bushels English), though the cdrov is one third of the 
fidrog, and (3drog one tenth of the icopog. 

3. Inaccuracies. 
To rectify inexact and imperfect renderings, which ob- 
scure, or weaken, or modify the sense intended by the sa- 
cred writer. 

These cases are far more numerous than positive errors, though often 
scarcely less injurious. They may be classified under the following heads : 

(a.) Omission of the article. 

Matt. iv. 5, ' a pinnacle,' for 'the pinnacle (to Trrepvyiov) of the Temple.' 

Matt. v. 1, and other places, 'a mountain,' instead of ' the mountain' (to 
opoc). 

Matt. xii. 41, ' rise up in judgment, ' for 'in the j. ' (comp. ver. 42, where the 
article is correctly retained in the A. V.). 

Matt. xxiv. 12, 'the love of many shall wax (grow) cold,' instead of 'the 
love of the many' (tCjv 7ro\\u>v), i. e. the vast majority of the disciples. 

John vi. 4, ' the Passover, a feast of the Jews,' instead of ' the (great) feast' 
(/) top-i) tuiv 'lovcaim'). 

John xii. 13, 'They took branches of palm-trees,' where the original reads 
' the branches of the palm-trees' (of the Mount of Olives). 

Rom. v. 15, 17, 18, 19, 'one' and 'many' (opposed to few), for 'the one,' 6 
elg (i. e. Adam the one transgressor on one hand, and Christ the one restorer 
on the other), and ' the many,' oi 7ro\\oi (i. e. the mass, the whole race, 7rdvTtg 
ap$poj-oi, ver. 12). The omission of the article in this important passage 
weakens the antithesis and obscures the idea of the sufficiency and universal 
intent of Christ's redemption. 

Rom. v. 9, 'saved from wrath,' instead of 'the wrath' to come (otto Trjg 
opyfjg). Correct in 1 Thess. ii. 16. 

1 Cor. ix. 5, 'as well as other apostles,' instead of 'the other apostles' (oi 

XOLTTOI dTTOCTToXoi). 

Col. i. 19, 'all fulness,' instead of ' the whole fulness' (nav to 7r\rjpiofia), i. e. 
the plenitude or totality of divine powers. 

2 Thess. ii. 3, 'except a falling away,' for 'the falling away,' i. e. the great 
apostasy (>/ aTroaTaoia). 

1 Tim. vi. 12, 13, 'a good profession,' for 'the good profession.' 

2 Tim. iv. 7, 8, ' fought a good fight .... my course .... a crown of 

* See my annotation to Lange on Matthew, p. 332, textual note l . 



INTR OB rCTIOX. xxx v 

righteousness,' for 'the good fight Recourse the crown of 

righteousness.' 

Heb. xi. 10, 'he looked for a city which hath foundations,' instead of 'he 
was looking (i^eoexfro, imperf.) for the (heavenly) city which has the founda- 
tions' (r^v tovq SffieXiovg ixovaav tt6\iv)\ comp. xii. 22 ; Eev. xxi. 14,19, 30. 

Rev. vii. 14, 'they which come out of great tribulation,' for ''the great trib- 
ulation' (Ik rijg BXiips(x)g rrjg fieydXrjc); comp. Matt. xxiv. 22, 29 ; Dan. xii. 1. 

The article is often neglected before vo/jloq in the Romans and Galatians, 
where it designates the written Mosaic law, in distinction from vdfxog, the un- 
written, abstract, and universal law; and in the Gospels before Christ, 6 Xpi<rrdc, 
the long-expected Messiah of the Jews (e. g. Matt. ii. 4; xi. 2; xvi. 16; xxiv. 
5 ; Luke xxiii. 35, 39). 

Although the English idiom does not always admit the article where it is 
in the Greek, yet it is generally safe to render it whenever it is emphatic, or 
when it appears after a preposition, though there are exceptions, e. g. Matt, 
iii. 13 (dizb rrjg TaXiXaiag krri tov 'lopddvnv irpbg tov 'Ihidvvrjv). King 
James's revisers seem to have followed too often the Latin Version, where 
the article disappears. 

(b.) Insertion of the definite article where there is none in the 
Greek. 

Matt, xxvii. 54, 'the Son of God,' for 'a Son of God' (comp. the parallel 
passage, Luke xxiii. 47, ' a righteous ?«an'). 

John iv. 27, 'with the woman,' as if the impropriety was in Christ's speak- 
ing with this particular woman of Samaria, while the disciples, without know- 
ing her character, took offense at his talking with a woman (fxerd yvvaiKog), 
i. e. with any woman, contrary' to the rabbinical rule. 

Acts xxvi. 2, 'accused of the Jews' (as if all were included). 

Rom. ii. 14, ' When the Gentiles which have not the law observe by nature,' 
etc., instead of ' When Gentiles ;' t$vn, i. e. some, not all. 

1 Thess. iv. 17, 'caught up together with them in the clouds,' instead of 'in 
clouds' (Iv vEQiXaig). 

1 Tim. vi. 10, ' the love of money is the root of all evil ;' as if it was the only 
one, while the apostle calls it simply ' a root' (pi£«) among other fruitful roots, 
as pride, hatred, idolatry, intemperance, from which every form of moral evil 
may spring. » 

(c.) Neglect of prepositions. 

The prepositions iv (in, signifying rest) and elg (into, signifying motion), 
the did with the genitive (instrumental, through, by means of, etc.) and did 
with the accusative (indicating the moving cause, because of, on account of), 
U (=ex, out of, from, origin, motion out of), dird (—ab,from, remoter than 
Ik) and viro with genitive (from under, by), are very often confounded, to the 
serious injury of the sense. 

We have already mentioned, under a previous head, the exchange of tig for 
iv in the baptismal formula, which amounts to a mistranslation. 

Luke xxiii. 42, the Greek requires ' comest in thy kingdom' ( ' regno jam 
acquisito', as Maldonatus observes ; comp. Matt. xxv. 31 : ' When the Son 
of man shall come in his glory,' etc.), instead of 'into thy kingdom.' 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION. 

Rom. xi. 2, iv 'KXia, 'in (the history of) Elijah,' not 'o/Elias.' 

Phil. ii. 10, iv rep bvo\ia.Ti 'fyoov, ' in the name of Jesus,' instead of ' at the 
name. ' 

In 2 Pet. i. 5-7 the omission of the preposition (iv ry iriffrei — iv Ty yvwcrei, 
k.t.X.) tends to turn the organic development of the Christian graces and 
their causal dependence one upon another into a mechanical accumulation. 

In 1 Pet. ii. 12 and iii. 16 we have ' whereas,' instead of ' wherein' (iv y). 

'E^is often wrongly translated by or through, where it signifies the life-ele- 
ment, as in the important Pauline phrases 'in Christ, "in the Lord," en the 
Spirit,' e. g. Rom. vi. 11 ; xiv. 14 ; xv. 16 ; 1 Cor. xii. 3, 9 ; while Eom. viii. 
1, 2 ; ix. 1 ; xii. 5 ; xiv. 17 ; xvi. 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13 ; 1 Cor. i. 2, etc., it is 
correctly rendered in. 

(d.) Neglect of particles. 

Every careful reader of the Greek Testament, and of such commentators as 
Meyer, Fritzsche, Ellicott, knows how much the full force of Paul's argument 
depends upon a correct understanding and translation of the logical and ar- 
gumentative particles, especially the illative dpa, dpaye, dpa ovv, the simpler 
ovv (most frequent in John), the adversative dXXd, etc. It is quite impossi- 
ble, however, in the English language, to do full justice to the wealth of par- 
ticles in which the Greek excels. 

Examples: Gal. v. 11, ''then after alV (dpa), for ''then; vi. 10, 'A ccord- 
ingly then, as we have opportunity' (dpa ovv), for ' therefore," 1 etc. ; iii. 5, ' He 
then who is bestowing' (ovv, resumptive), for 'therefore;' so John xr. 6 ; and 
John vi. 60, 'now many of his disciples' (ovv, continuative), for 'many there- 
fore,' etc. ; so xi. 33 ; xii. 9 ; Rom. vii. 7, ' but I had not known sin' (dXXd), 
for 'nay,' etc. ; Gal. iii. 22, 'but, on the contrary' (aXXd), for 'but;' Gal. v. 
16, 'now I say' (8s), for 'This I say then;' 1 Tim. i. 8, 'now we know' (Si), 
for 'but;' Gal. iii. 17, 'this, however,! say,' (Si), for 'and.' 

(e.) Non-observance of tenses, moods, and voices. 

Aorists are very often confounded with perfects, perfects with aorists ; im- 
perfects are rendered as aorists and perfects ; the changes of moods and 
voices are less frequent. A few examples must suffice. 

The imperfect should be represented, Luke i. 59, ' they were calling' (iicd- 
Xovv), for 'called;' Luke v. 6, 'their net ivas breaking,' or 'began to break' 
(dupprjyvvro), for 'brake ;' Luke xiv. 7, 'were' choosing out' (i^eXiyovro), for 
'chose out ;' Acts iii. 1, 'were going up' (dvifiaivov), for 'went up ;' Mark ii. 
18, ' were fasting' (ijaav vyjartvovreg), for 'used to fast ;' Gal. i. 13, 'was de- 
stroying,' or 'wasting' (iiropQovv), for 'wasted;' and ver. 23, 'which once he 
was destroying' (iiropOei.), for 'destroyed.' 

The aorist should be rendered, Matt, xxvii. 4, ijfxaprov 7rapadovg alfia d9uj- 
ov, ' I sinned in betraying innocent blood' (which is in better keeping with the 
concise earnestness of the Greek and the desperate state of Judas than ' I 
have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood') ; Luke i. 19, dirtoTd- 
Xnv, ' I was sent,' instead of ' I am sent' (dTrio-TaXfiai) ; Mark xvi. 2, dvarei- 
XavTOQ roii r'jXLov, 'when the sun was risen,' instead of 'at the rising of the 
sun;' Rom. v. 12, 'sinned' (ijfiaprov,' omnes peccarunt peccante Adamo,' Ben- 
gel), for ' have sinned. ' 



INTRODUCTION. xxxvii 

The present should be restored in Heb. ii. 16, E7riXapj3dvETai, ' he delivereth 
not angels, but he delivereth the seed of Abraham,' instead of ' he took not on 
him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham.' 

The perfect should be given in Luke xiii. 2, ' they have suffered' (in the 
past, 7re7r6v9a(nv) such things, for ' they suffered.' 

The passive should be restored, 2 Cor. v. 10, 'we must all be made mani- 
fest (cpavepcoQrjvai, exhibited as we are) before the judgment seat of Christ,' 
instead of 'appear.' 

(f.) NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE GENITIVE, ESPECIALLY THE GENITIVE OF 
QUALITY, WHICH IS OFTEN WEAKENED BY THE SUBSTITUTION OF AN AD- 
JECTIVE. 

Rom. viii. 6, to (ppovijpia -fjg trapKoc, ' the mind of the flesh,' to §p6vn\xa tov 
nvevfiaTog, ' the mind of the Spirit' — stronger than ' to be carnally minded,' 
'to be spiritually minded.' 

Rom. viii. 21, ti)v tXtvQepiav Tr\g co^ng twv tekvujv tov Sreov, 'the liberty 
of the glory of the children of God,' for ' the glorious liberty.' 

Phil. iii. 21, to owpa rrjg Tairuvuotujg t)fxu>v, ' the body of our humiliation,' 
and to aCJfxa Ti)g co^ng avTov, ' the body of his glory,' are -weakened by the 
translation ' our vile body' and ' his glorious body. ' 

1 Tim. i. 11, to EvayykXiov Ttjg dofyg, 'the gospel of the glory,' instead of 
'the glorious gospel.' 

(<?.) Inadequate and insufficient renderings of words and phrases. 

Matt. vi. 2, 6, airixovai should be rendered 'they have all,' or 'have in full J 
(haben dahin), i. e. they can expect no more. The A.V. treats it like the 
simple txovai. 

Matt. xxi. 40, icatcovg KaKujg {=pessimos pessime) a7ro\hei, is a paronoma- 
sia of the purest Greek, bringing out the agreement of character -with the 
punishment, and may be reproduced in English by ' he will miserably destroy 
those miserable men,' or ' he will wretchedly destroy those wretches' (as in 
German by Elenden elendiglich, or schlimm and Schlimmen, or ubel and Uebel- 
thater),but the A.V. destroys it by ' miserably — those ivicked men.' 

Matt, xxvii. 32, ' him (Simon of Cyrene) they compelled (for impressed) to 
bear his cross,' which makes the act appear as an arbitrary assumption of 
power, while dyyapeveiv is the technical term for pressing men or horses into 
public service by authority. 

Matt, xxvii. 44, 'Cast the same in his teeth,' for 'reproached him in like 
manner' (r6 av~b .... &>vsidt.£ov avri^). 

Matt, xxvii. 49, 'Let be' (a rebuke), for the hortatory ' Come, let us see,' or 
simply 'Lei us see.' *A<ptg 'idooiiEv is a shortened popular form of expression 
for atpeg 'iva IScj/xev, like aQeg iicfiaXu) in Matt. vii. 4 and Luke vi. 42. (See 
Buttmann's Gram. d. N. T. Sprache, p. 181 seq., and Moulton's note to his 
excellent translation of Winer, p. 356, note 3 . ) The elliptical or concise form 
of expression is like SeXeig e^ttoj/xev ; tl SeXete ttoit]<joj ; and the familiar omis- 
sion of ut in Latin after volo, sino, etc. 

Luke ii. 49, 'about my Father's business;' better, 'in my Father's house,' 
i. e. the temple. 

John i. 14, ' dwelled among us,' where tabernacled, or pitched his tent (Mey- 



xxxviii INTRODUCTION. 

er and Ewald, zeltete ; Godet, a dresse sa tente), would better render the ob- 
vious allusion of the verb ioKY]vu)ot to the acrjvrj, or Shekinah (from "pT2J), and 
its typical appearance in the tabernacle and the temple of old, now actualized 
in the essential and permanent indwelling of the Divine 66%a in the person 
of the incarnate Logos. Comp. Apoc. vii. 15 ; xxi. 3.* 

John i. 43 (in the English Bible, ver. 44 in the Greek), ' he would go, ' for 
' intended to go' (f}Qk\notv). The force of SLXeiv is very often neglected. 
See Diet. 

Rom. v. 18, 'righteousness,' for ' righteous act,' diicaiwpa (not diKaioavvr}). 
In the same chapter, ver. 16, the word is translated 'justification' (which 
would require ducaiuMjig), while it means either righteous act, as in ver. 18, or 
righteous sentence (Rechtsspruch).f 

Rom. vii. 23, 'another law,' for a 'different law' (trzpog, not aXXog), and 
Gal. i. 6, 'another gospel,' for a 'different gospel.' In both cases trtpog (di- 
ver sus) is used, which means different in kind, while aXKog (alius) means an- 
other of the same kind. 

1 Cor. xiii. 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 13, 'charity' (from 'caritas), which is now used in a 
restricted sense, for the more comprehensive love (aycix)]) to God and man. 

Gal. i. 6, ' Ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace 
of Christ unto another gospel,' instead of 'so soon changing over (ptraTiQt- 
ade, middle, not passive) from him that called you in (or by, lv, not tig) the 
grace of Christ, unto a different gospel.' 

Gal. i. 14, 'And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals;' bet- 
ter, 'And surpassed in Judaism many of my age' (avvn\iKiujTag). Verse 15, 
' who separated me,' for ' set me apart.' 

Gal. i. 18,' to see Peter,' for 'to make the acquaintance' (larop7)aai, which is 
more than Idtlv) of Cephas' (the correct reading, as in ii. 9, 11, 14). 

Gal. ii. 6,' those who seemed to be somewhat' (the pillar apostles), for ' who 
were deemed somewhat,' or 'who are of reputation.' 

Gal. ii. 11, ' he was to be blamed' (from the reprehensibilis of the Vulgate), 
for ' was condemned' (teartyvojerpivog fjv). 

Eph. iv. 3, ' endeavoring' (which, as now used, implies the possibility or prob- 
ability of failure) ' to keep the unity of the Spirit,' etc., instead of the stron- 
ger 'giving all diligence,' 'striving earnestly' (<T7rovdaZ,ovrtg). 

Col. i. 15, TTpojToroKog Tracing Kriaetog should be rendered 'begotten be/ore 
every creature,' or 'before the whole creation, ' Avhich is required by the con- 
text ; for Christ is said to be before all things, and all things were made by 
him (ver. 1 6). The A. V. , ' the first-born of every creature, ' mistakes the gen- 
itive of comparison, or of the point of view (the genitive depends on rrpuiTog, 
as TrpCJTog pov, John i. 15, 30) for a partitive genitive, and might furnish an 
argument to Arianism, which regards Christ as the first creature (icriapa). 
But there is an important distinction between 7rp(x)T6TOKog=7rpujr6yovog, and 
TTpioTOKTicrrog, or irpujTOTfXaaTog.X 

The translation ' God forbid,' for pr) ykvoiro (Rom. iii. 4, 6), and ' I would 

* See Lange on John, p. 71, textual note l , and 73. 

t Comp. on this difficult word, Rothe on Romans v. 12-21, and my edition 
of Lange on Romans, p. 184 seq. 

X See the remarks of Meyer, Ellicott, and Braune — Riddle, in loc. 



IXTR OB UCTIOK X X xix 

to God,' for u<pt\ov (1 Cor. iv. 8), though strong and expressive (too much 
so), sounds profane to a modern ear, and ought to be changed. 

4. Inconsistencies. 
To introduce consistency and uniformity in the trans- 
lation of words and phrases. 

The defects under this head are closely allied to those under the preceding 
head, and are discussed with much care by Prof. Lightfoot.* Wherever the 
variation does not affect the sense or weaken the emphasis, we would allow 
considerable freedom and retain the traditional rendering. A mechanical 
uniformity would often mar the beauty or the rhythmical flow of diction, and 
do great injustice to the genius of the English language and its wealth in 
bilingual duplicates, which is one of its characteristic advantages and ele- 
ments of power, f But the A. V. goes to an extreme in two opposite directions, 

* Dr. Lightfoot is no doubt right in principle, notwithstanding the strict- 
ures of Mr. Erie in 'The Guardian for September 20, 1871, and January 10, 
1872, and of an able reviewer in ''The London Quart. Review' for July, 1872. 
The application of the principle is often a matter of taste and expediency. 

t As ''act and deed,' 'head and chief,' 'might and power,'' 'justice and 
righteousness,'' 'royal and kingly,' 'sacerdotal and priestly,' 'mature and 
ripe,' ' omnipotent and almighty,' 'timely and early,' 'desire and wish,' 'sanc- 
tify and hallow,' 'conceal and hide,' 'constitute and make,' 'baptize (Greek, 
Latin) and christen (Greek, Saxon). There is, however, mostly a shade of 
diiference between the Saxon and the corresponding Norman-Latin terms, as 
between 'love,' the affection of the heart toward God and man, and 'charity,' 
love in active exercise toward our neighbor; 'freedom,' the inherent power, 
and ' liberty,' in opposition to previous servitude or restraint; 'readable, 
which refers to the matter, and ' legible,' which refers to the form or hand- 
writing; between 'ox,' ''calf 'sheep,' 'deer,' which signify the animals in 
their natural state, and ''beef 'veal,' 'mutton,' ' venison, ' which are used of 
the meat of these animals as prepared for the table of the Norman lord. 
The framers of the original portions of the Anglican Common Prayer-book, 
probably from a desire to reach the hearts of all classes of the people at a 
time when the condition of the language was not yet perfectly settled, made 
very frequent use of bilingual duplicates, as acknowledge and confess, dis- 
semble and cloak, humble and lowly, goodness and mercy, assemble and meet 
together, requisite and necessary, pray and beseech, remission and forgiveness, 
loving and amiable. The Saxon is the democratic, the Norman the aristo- 
cratic element in the English language ; the former gives it strength, the 
latter dignity ; the Saxon supplies the vocabulary of common, every-day life, 
the Norman the vocabulary of rank and fashion ; the one we need at home, 
the other in the courts of law, on the chase, and in polished society. The 
Saxon is the language in which we live and die, and express our deepest 
thoughts and feelings. It therefore very properly predominates in the Prot- 
estant versions of the English Bible since Tyndale, who excelled in the 
purest and most vigorous Saxon. W T hat can be finer than such truly Saxon 
passages as ' My heart is smitten and withered like grass ;' or, 'If heart and 



x l INTRODUCTION. 

by creating false distinctions not intended by the sacred writers, and by ob- 
literating real distinctions Avhich are more or less important. A glance into 
the ' 'Englishman 's Greek Concordance of the New Testament 1 will furnish an 
abundance of examples.* The variation occurs often in the same context and 
even the same verse, where the repetition would be as beautiful and forcible as 
the repetition of Blessed are in the Sermon on the Mount. The revisers laid 
down, in their preface, the false and mischievous rule ' not to tie themselves 
to a uniformity of phrasing or to an identity of words, ' lest they be charged 
'with some unequal dealing toward a great number of English words.' 
Perhaps the transition state of the English language, and the desire to melt 
the Latin and Saxon elements, may have had something to do with this rule. 

(a. ) Needless or injurious variations. 

a i (b v i o g, in the important passage Matt. xxv. 46, is used in both clauses ; 
and yet the A.V. has there 'everlasting punishment' and 'life eternal.'' 

a ir o k d\vip i c is rendered by revelation, Rom. li. 5 (and in most other pas- 
sages) ; manifestation, viii. 19 ; coming, 1 Cor. i. 7 ; appearing, 1 Pet. i. 7. 

eXerjarat and r\ X s rj a a, in the same verse, Matt, xviii. 33, have had com- 
passion and had pity. 

t v e p y e I v, in the same verse, ivorketh and to do, Phil. ii. 13 ('God worheth 
to will and-to work" 1 ). 

kTrioKOTroQ is uniformly translated (or transferred rather) bishop (Phil, 
i. 1 ; 1 Tim. iii. 2; Tit. i. 7; 1 Pet. ii. 25), except in Acts xx. 28, where it is 
Anglicized into overseers, and thus one of the best arguments for the identity 

flesh fail, thou art the strength of my heart and my portion (lot) for ever.;' 
or the version of the twenty-third Psalm ? In the Lord's Prayer some fifty- 
four words are Saxon, and the remaining six, which are of Latin origin 
(trespasses, trespass, temptation, deliver, power, glory), could easily be re- 
placed by corresponding Saxori terms (sins, sin, trial, free, might, brightness). 
The Douay Bible has retained from the Vulgate ' supersubstantial bread' for 
' daily bread !' The A.V. , however, being the work of forty-seven scholars, is 
not uniform in the preponderance of Saxon, and the difference is quite 
marked. Comp. e. g. the concluding sentence of the Sermon on the Mount, 
as given by Matthew and Luke, and there can be not a moment's hesitation 
as to the superiority of the more Saxon rendering of Matthew. 



Luke vi. 49. 
'Against which the stream did beat 
vehemently, and immediately it fell ; 
and the ruin of that house was great. ' 



Matt. vii. 27. 

'And the rain descended, and the 
floods came, and the winds blew, and 
beat upon that house ; and it fell, and 
great was the fall of it.' 

* Fifth, ed., London, 1868. This is a most useful book for the proper esti- 
mate of the Authorized Version, as it gives the passages in English, while re- 
taining (from Bruder) the alphabetical order of the Greek words of the N. T. 
The same is true of ' The Englishman's Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance of 
the Old Testament,' third ed., London, 1866, 2 vols. It is more convenient 
for purposes of revision than Buxtorf and Fttrst. Hudson's Critical Greek 
and English Concordance of the New Testament, 2d ed., Boston, 1871 (revised 
by Dr. E. Abbot), is also of special value for the work of revision. 



INTRODUCTION. x \[ 

of apostolic and primitive bishops and presbyters (comp. rove TrpzafivApovg, 
the elders, ver. 17, who are the same persons with the imaKoizoi, ver. 28) is 
lost to the English reader.* 

Spo vog is throne, Kev. i. 4 ; iii. 21 ; iv. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and many other pas- 
sages, when used of God and of Christ, but the Spovoi of the twenty-four eld- 
ers who reign with Christ in heaven are lowered into ''seats,'' iv. 4, and the 
Spovog of Satan, ii. 13, as well as that of the beast from the abyss, xvi. 10, is 
likewise changed into a 'seat,' and thus the intended antithetical correspond- 
ence between the infernal counterfeit and the heavenly original is destroyed. 

XoyiZ,opai, in the sense to impute, a very important word in Paul's doc- 
trine of declaratory or forensic justification, is rendered by three verbs in the 
same chapter, and in the same connection with Sacaioavvr], viz. to count, Rom. 
iv. 3, 5 ; to reckon, iv. 5, 9, 10 ; to impute, iv, 6, 8, 11, 22, 23 x 24. 

tcaraXXayrj, atonement, Rom. v. 11 ; reconciling, xi. 15 ; reconciliation, 2 
Cor. v. 18,19. 

Kvpiorng, government, 2 Pet. ii.10, but in the parallel passage, Jude 8, dig- 
nities. 

% 6 <pog, darkness, 2 Pet. ii. 4; mist, 2 Pet. ii. 17; and in the parallel pas- 
sage, Jude 17, blackness. 

TrapaKXnTog, when used of the Holy Spirit, is rendered (with Wicliffe, 
Luther) Comforter (John xiv. 16, 26 ; xv. 26 ; xvi. 7) ; when used, in the same 
sense, of Christ, it is more correctly rendered (with the Vulgate) Advocate (1 
John ii. 1). Grammatically, 7rapa.icXn.Tog, being passive in form (one who is 
called in, or summoned to aid, a counsel for defense), can not well have the 
active meaning of Consola tor, Comforter (which would require 7rapaicXr}ru)p), 
but the familiar Comforter, in old English, agreeably to its derivation from the 
Latin comfortari, implied the idea of Strengthener, Supporter, which comes 
nearer the meaning of Advocate, and expresses an important office of the 
Holy Spirit, so that it should better be retained, either in the text with Ad- 
vocate in the margiu, or vice versa.f 

Xoyog is represented in the A.V. by no less than twenty-eight different 
terms, viz. cause, communication, saying, word, account, thing, talk, matter, 
question, fame, treatise, speaker (Acts xiv. 12), mouth (xv. 27), reason, speech, 
work, utterance, to say, tidings, etc. 

Karapyeu) occurs twenty-seven times in the N. T., and is rendered by sev- 
enteen different verbs, to cumber, to make void, to make of none effect, to do 
away, to put down, etc. 

"E\\?7 v, now Greek, now Gentile. 

Kavxaopai is rendered to make boast, to glory, to boast, and to rejoice. 

* In this case one feels tempted to suspect King James's revisers of Epis- 
copal bias, since most of them probably agreed with him in the false principle, 
'No bishop, no king.' The primitive identity of bishops and presbyters in 
the N. T. is now admitted by the best scholars of the Church of England. 
See Alford on Acts xx. 17, and Lightfoot's Excurs. in Comm. on Philippians. 

f This question is fully discussed by Archdeacon Hare in his Mission of 
the Comforter, and by myself in Lange on John, pp. 440-442. Lightfoot (p. 
55, Engl, ed.) strongly pleads for Advocate in all the passages. No word in 
the English language can express the full meaning of TrapaKXnTog. 



xlii INTRODUCTION. 

KrjpvcFGU), mostly to preach, but several times to publish, and once to pro- 
claim (Rev. v. 2). 

fiapTvpe(o,to charge, to give, to record, to witness, and by other verbs. 

7rapaKa\s(ois rendered to comfort, to beseech, to desire, to entreat, to exhort. 

Trp 6 cicoppa, offence, stumbling, stumbling-block, stumbling-stone. 

7rp6o-i07rov, appearance, before, countenance, face, fashion, men's persons, 
outward appearance, person, presence. 

7rp6(paaig, which occurs but seven times, is rendered pretence (3 times), 
shew (once), clolce (twice), color (once). 

tvttoq, which occurs in 15 passages (16 times), is given by 8 variations, 
viz. print, figure, fashion, manner, form, example, ensample, pattern. 

phvio has 10, opinio 5, 6%\o£ 6, TraiSiaicr] 5, 7r6\epog 4, OTrovci] 7, 
avvepyog 7, cw£a> 7, vTrdyu) 6, vcTtpio) 9, <pi\adt\(pia 3, (pspcj 16, 
XP^ia 9, ■ijyaXXuj 3, ^vxv 8, wore 9 different translations. 

(6.) Obliteration of important distinctions. 

#.dr}g,i. e. the whole invisible spirit-world, the receptacle of all the dead 
(Unterwelt, TodtenreicK), corresponding to the Hebrew Sheol, is uniformly 
(11 times in the New Testament) translated hell, except once (1 Cor. xv. 55, 
grave), and thus confounded with ysevva, which is likewise (in 12 places) 
so translated, and correctly, for gehenna means the eternal state and place of 
damnation and torment. The same confusion is found in Luther's and other 
versions, and hence the distinction between Hades or Sheol, and Hell, is almost 
lost in the popular mind, and Christ's descent into Hades is very little under- 
stood. 

dtdicovoi and SovXoi, in the parable, Matt. xxii. 1-14, are alike ren- 
dered servants, although the former are angels and the latter men. 

Brjpia and Z,GJa, in the Apocalypse, iv. 6, 7, 8, 9 ; v. 6 ; vi. 1, etc., are alike 
translated ' beasts ; yet the £wa are the heavenly representatives of all created 
life worshipping before the throne in heaven, and the very opposite of the Snpia, 
their hellish antagonists, which arise from the bottomless pit and demand idol- 
atrous worship (vi. 8 ; xi. 7 ; xiii. 1 seq., 14 seq. ; xiv. 9, etc.). 

With all the wealth of the English language, one word is sometimes made 
to do service for half a dozen or more Greek terms, without regard to their 
nice and delicate shades of meaning. 

abide stands for dvaorpe(p(D, avXi^opica, SiaTpifiu), tTrip'svu), 'iarnfxi, Karapih'io, 
pevcj, Trapapkvii), rrodu), vTropevu). 

acceptable for aTCodtKTog, dtKrog, svdpearog, evrrpocdeKTog, xaptg- 

accusation for airia, Karrjyopia, Kp'iaig. 

affliction for $\i\pig, Kaicojaig, TrdSrjfAa. 

appear for dvatyaivofxai, tp-paviZa), l7ri<pa(vio, epxopai, O7rrojua/, <paivu>, <j>av- 
epoio. 

bad for icaicog, Trovnpog, aa-xpog. 

bring forth for dvdyco, cnronvtu), j3\aardv(o, ysvvdu), did(j)Lii, sK/3a\\w, ttcfspco, 
t^dyoj, Kardyco, TrapadiSiviu, ttoisu), 7rpodyot), 7rpo<pspu), tiktoj, tpkpu). 

but for d\\d, yap, lav, ei pi], tKrog, r}, fxevroi, pr\, lav pin, pbvov, ovv, 7c\t]v. 

call for tTTiKaXsopai, iTriXsyoLiai, tiru), sort, kuXscj, Xiyo), peraKaXtopai, cvo- 
pdZ,b), Trpoaayopevopai, TcpovKaXtopai, alreu), p.eraKaXeopai, pera7rsp7ruj, xapa- 
icaXtu), TcpooKaXkopai, <pwvt(o. 



INTRODUCTION, ^m 

child for j3pe(pog, vi]mog, Traidapiov, -KaiSiov, nalg, tskvov, vioq. 

choose for axpkopai, cuperi£<n, iicXeyopai, tmXkyopai, wpoxupiZopai, x a j°°~ 

TOViOJ. 

conversation for avaorpotyr}, rpoTzog, TroXirtvpa. 

devil for cid(3oXog, £aip<vv, and daipoviov. 

gift for dvdOnpa, Sopa, coatg, duped, cwprjpa, Swpov, pepiapog, X«P l C> X#~ 
piapa. 

worship for evaefieoj, Bepmrevu), Xarpevu), TrpoGtcvvkio, atfldZopat, crsfiopai. 

come stands for no less than 32 Greek verbs, command for 8, consider for 1 1 , 
continue for 13, declare for 14, desire for 13, depart for 21, dwell for 5, eat for 6, 
except for 7, finish for 7, fulfil for 7, #u<e for 14, 5-0 for 16, /jnow for 7, »i«£e 
for 13, mighty for 7, raiment for 5, perceive for 11, receive for 18, servant for 
7, s/ia/rce for 6, fa£e for 21 , */**«& for 12, #e* for 10 different Greek words. 

5. ArcJiaisms. 

To remove obsolete archaisms, and to substitute intelli- 
gible words and phrases. 

There is a difference between antique and antiquated words and phrases. 
The former should be retained, the latter be removed. Archaisms which, 
though seldom or never used in modern English, are still intelligible, may- 
even enhance the solemnity and pungency of the Bible diction, which ought 
to soar above the vulgarity and familiarity of common speech. Here belong 
such words as 'list,' 'travail,' 'twain,' 'forasmuch,' 'howbeit;' the ending 
'eth' for 's' in the third person singular of the verb; the old preterites 'clave,' 
1 brake,' ' sware ;' such phrases as ' well stricken in years,'* ' threescore years 
and ten.' 

Antiquated archaisms are : 

(a.) Words which have gone more or less out of use, and are 
NOT understood BY the people : taches, ouches, hnops, neesings, daysman 
(in the O. T.), all. to (for altogether, in Judges ix. 53, 'and all to brake his 
skull,' with no corresponding word in Hebrew), goodman (for householder, 
Matt. xxi. 11 ; comp. ver. 1), Jewry (for Judaa, John vii. 1 ; Luke xxiii. 5). 

(b.) Words which are still used, but have changed their mean- 
ing : to prevent, in the sense of prcevenire, to come before, to anticipate (Matt. 
xvii. 25, irpok<p9aGtv) ; to let, in the sense to hinder (2 Thess. ii. 7) ; charger 
(now mostly used for a horse in battle), in the sense of platter (Matt. xiv. 8); 
carriages, for baggage (Acts xxi. 15) ; robbers of churches, for robbers of 
(heathen) temples QtpoavXoi, Acts xix. 37) ; nephews, for grandchildren or de- 
scendants (ticyova, 1 Tim. v. 4) ; to offend, for cause to stumble (aicavca\i'£w, 
often); and offence, for stumbling-block, scandal, cause of sinning or ruin 
(pizavcaXov, Matt, xviii. 7, etc.); ' generation of vipers,' for brood, offspring 
(yeved) ; devotions, for idols or objects of devotion (<jt(id<Tpa-a, Acts xvii. 23) ; 
'not slothful in business, 1 for diligence (Rom. xii. 11, ry gttov&j pr) oKvnpoi; 
comp. ver. 8); conversation, in the sense of deportment, moral conduct (Phil. 
i. 27, for iroXiTtvtadt, let your conversation be; Phil. iii. 20, for TroXirevpa, 

* David Hume, in his brief autobiography, uses this phrase of himself. 



xli v INIBODUCTIOM 

which is mistaken for avaffrpofyr), also by Luther, but means either country, 
commonwealth, or citizenship)', ''take no thought for your life,' for anxious 
thought, or be not troubled about (firj /xspifivare, Matt, vi: 25, 31, 34); 'occu- 
py till I come,' for trade ye (TrpayfiarevaaaOe, Luke xix. 13 ; comp. ver. 15) ; 
coast, frequently for border or region ; quarrel, for complaint {querela, Col. 
iii. 13) ; dishonesty, for shame (2 Cor. iv. 2) ; instantly, in the sense of ur- 
gently (Luke vii. 4) ; ' I know nothing by myself (perhaps a mistranslation), 
for i against myself (1 Cor. iv. 4, ovdiv ifiavr^ cvvoida) ; 'do to wif (2 Cor. 
viii. 1), for 'make known;" 1 'careful' (Phil. iv. 6), for 'anxious.' 

' To yield up the ghost' should give way, in Matt. xvii. 50, to ' yielded up 
his spirit,' as the former is now used in a low or less serious sense. 

As to the familiar which for who when referring to persons, the majority of 
American revisers would probably prefer the change, as it has become quite 
familiar in the use of the Lord's Prayer (in all American editions of the Com- 
mon Prayer-Book). It is unwise to bring the language of the Church into 
conflict with the language of the school. But the English feeling will prob- 
ably retain this and a number of other archaic forms ; and concessions on 
such points should be readily made by the American revisers. 

6. Proper Names. 
To introduce uniformity in the spelling of proper names 
of persons and places, retaining, as a rule, the Hebrew 
forms for Hebrew names, the Greek forms for Greek, 
except where a foreign name has been thoroughly natural- 
ized and unalterably fixed in English usage, as in the fa- 
miliar names Jesus (the Saviour) for Joshua (the leader 
of Israel), Mary for Miriam, James for Jacob, John for 
Johannes, Matthew for Mattheeus, Andrew for Andreas, 
Paul for Paulus, Peter for Petrus, Stephen for Stephanus, 
Jerusalem for Yerushalaim or Hierosolyma, Athens, Pome, 
and a few more. 

(a.) Hebrew and Greek forms : 

(1.) Persons: 

Hagar (in the O. T.) and Agar (Gal. iv. 24, 25). Elijah (in the 0. T.) 
and Elias (in the N.). Elisha and Eliseus. Isaiah, Esaias, and Esay. Jer- 
emiah (in the O. T.) and Jeremias (Matt. xvi. 14), also Jeremy (twice in 
Matt. ii. 17; xvii. 9). Hosea and Osee (Rom. ix. 25). Jonah and Jonas. 
Obadiah and Abdias. Zechariah and Zacharias. Korah and Core (Jude 11). 
Noah (3 times in the N. T.) and Noe (5 times in the N. T.). Eahab and 
Eachab. Judah and Judas, also Jude. Joshua, and Jesus. The substitu- 
tion of Jesus for Joshua in Acts vii. 45 (' brought in with Jesus into the pos- 
session of the Gentiles'), and in Heb. iv. 8 ('If Jesus had given them rest'), 
is especially mischievous, and should by all means be corrected. 



IXTRODUCTION. X J V 

(2.) Places: 

Asshur and Assyria. Cush and Ethiopia. Phrat and Euphrates. Edom 
and Idumea. Koresh and Cyrus. Sodom (generally) and Sodoma (Poni. 
ix. 29). 

(b.) Double Hebrew or Greek forms : 

Balac and Balak. Enoch and Henoch. Enos and Enosh. Cainan and 
Kenan. Gedeon and Gideon. Jephthae and Jephthah. Judah and Juda. 
Jared and Jered. Jonah and Jona. Melchisedec and Melchizedek. Seth 
and Sheth. 

Canaan and Kanaan. Gomorrha and Gomorrah. Sina (in Acts) and Si- 
nai (Gal. iv. 24, 25). 

(c.) Latin (or Hebrew, or Greek) and English terminations : 
Lucas and Luke (Col. iv. 14 ; Philem. 24). Marcus (three times, Col. iv. 10 ; 
Philem. 24 ; 1 Pet. v. 13) and Mark (four times in Acts, and once in the Epp. 
2 Tim. iv. 11). Judas and Jude. Timotheus and Timothy (even in the same 
chapter, 2 Cor. i. 1, 19). Jacob ('Iafcw/3, used of the patriarch) and James 
('IdKivfiog, of James the elder, James of Alpheus, and James the brother of 
the Lord). Jeremiah and Jeremy (retained in English names, as that of 
Bishop Jeremy Taylor). Miriam (of the sister of Moses) and Mary (to be 
retained for the mother of Jesus). Urbanus and Urbane (or Urban). 

Grecia and Greece. Judaea and Jewry (the latter only in Dan. v. 13 ; 
John vii. 1 ; Luke xxiii. 5). Tyrus and Tyre. (Miletus, Acts xx. 15, 17, 
and Miletum, 2 Tim. iv. 20.) Cretes and Cretians (Cretans is better than ei- 
ther). Areopagus and Mars'-hill (in the same chapter, Acts xvii. 19, 22). 
Calvary and 'A place of a skull.'* 

7. Accessories. 
To revise the orthography, the punctuation, the use of 
capitals (as in Spirit, Father, Son, Redeemer, Scriptures, 
etc.), the words in italics, the marginal references, the chro- 
nology (of Usher), and the headings of chapters and col- 
umns, all in conformity with the style of translation, the 
most approved standards, and present scholarship and usage. 

* Our Calvary, which is used only in Luke xxii. 33, for icpaviov (a diminu- 
tive of icpavov), a skull, is derived from the Vulgate, which renders the He- 
brew Golgotha by calvaria (fem. i. e. skull) in three other passages (Matt. 
xxvii. 33, Mark xv. 22, and John xix. 17). It is too deeply imbedded in 
Christian poetry and devotion to be given up. The popular expression '■Mount 
Calvary 1 has no Scripture foundation, and is probably of monastic origin. 
The Evangelists describe Golgotha simply as ro7roc,'a place,' or 'the Place 
of Skull.' It was probably only a small, round, and barren elevation in the 
shape of a skull, and derived its name from its globular form. See my text- 
ual notes in Lange, on Matthew xxvii. 33, p. 519 seq., and on John xix. 17, 
p. 582 seq. 



xlvi INTRODUCTION. 

These accessory matters, not being represented in the original text, belong 
to tbte boundary-line between translation and interpretation, and more free- 
dom should be allowed here to the revisers than in the translation proper. 
The careful labors of the American Bible Society, as laid down in the edition 
of 1852, which was set aside again by a subsequent standard edition of 1860, 
more nearly conformed to the older editions, might be made available to 
good purpose. 

8. Arrangement. 
Finally, to combine with the received division into chap- 
ters and verses an arrangement of the pix>se in paragraphs, 
and a metrical arrangement of poetry, according to the 
laws of Hebrew parallelism. 

The division into chapters, which dates from Cardinal Hugo de Santo Caro 
in the 13th century (d. 1263), and the division into verses,* first introduced 
in the Old Testament by Pagninus, in his edition of 1528, then completely by 
Robert Stephens, 1555, in his edition of the Vulgate, and 1551, in his (4th) edi- 
tion of the Greek Testament, though very defective,! must, of course, for the 
sake of convenience, be retained, but should by all means be supplemented by 
a more reasonable and appropriate arrangement according to sections, stan- 
zas, and verses. Much of the beauty of the Bible is lost to the common 
reader by the uniform printing of poetry and prose. If we have our hymn- 
books printed like poetry, why not also the inspired hymn-book, the Psalter ? 

This improvement, in which scholars and educated men are more interest- 
ed than the mass of Bible readers, will probably be strenuously opposed ; for 
since it strikes the eye, it would create the impression that the revised version 
is a different version from the familiar old Bible. % But this difficulty can 

* Not to be confounded with the older versus or ort'xot. 

t Thus the very first chapter of Genesis ought by all means to include the 
first three verses of the second chapter, which are an indispensable part of the 
first account of creation. The first chapter of Matthew ought to contain only 
the genealogy of Jesus till ver. 17, and the first chapter of John the Prologue 
to ver. 18. The versicular division which the learned printer Stephens (Eti- 
enne) is said to have made on a horseback journey (inter equitandum) from 
Paris to Lyons (see Bleek, Einleitung in das N. 71, p. 693), is entirely out of 
place in the narrative sections of the Bible, and very often breaks the connec- 
tion. The judgment of Reuss, in his Geschichte des Neuen Testaments (p. 
390, 4th ed.), is hardly too severe: ''Die Eintheihng {in Verse) ist an sich 
unsinnig, unzahlige Male fehlerhaft und selbst im besten Falle entbehrlich filr 
das Verstdndniss, das sie eher hindern als fordern kann." 1 At the same time, 
for purposes of quotation, the division is very convenient, and has, no doubt, 
contributed much to the comparative study of the Bible. Compare on the 
whole subject Dr. William Wright, art. Verse, in Kitto's Cycl.ofBibl.Lit., 
where numerous errors of preceding writers are corrected. 

% The way is prepared, however, by several editions of the A.V. in this 
style, especially ''The Cambridge Paragraph Bible^ edited by the Kev. P. H. 



INTRODUCTION. x l v ii 

easily be removed by issuing two editions, one of which should be conformed 
to the usual Bibles, in which the paragraphs should be marked by signs. 

The metrical arrangement should be carried out in the Psalms, the Book 
of Job (except the narrative prologue and epilogue), the Proverbs, the Song 
of Songs, Lamentations, and the poetic portions of the Prophets ; also in the 
lyric and prophetic parts of the historical books, as the Song of Lamech 
(Gen. iv.), the Prediction of Noah (Gen. ix.), the Blessing of Jacob (Gen. 
xlix.), the Song of Moses (Ex. xv.), the Prophecy of Balaam (Numb, xxivj, 
the Song of Deborah (Judg. v.), the Elegy of David on Jonathan (2 Sam. i.) ; 
and as to the New Testament, in the Benedictus of Zachariah, the Magnifi- 
cat of the Virgin Mary, the Parting Song of Simeon, the poetic citations scat- 
tered through the Gospels and Epistles (e. g. 1 Tim. iii. 1G), and the anthems 
of the Apocalypse. 

A few examples must suffice. 

the song of lamech. Gen. iv. 23, 24. 
This proud, defiant song of blood-revenge, or ' sword-song' (as Herder calls 
it), which commemorates the invention of weapons of brass and iron by La- 
mech's son Tubal-Cain, and the invention of musical instruments by his son 
Jubal ( = Harper), and which marks the origin of worldly poetry and music 
among the descendants of Cain, has already all the characteristics of Hebrew 
poetry : parallelism, rhythm, and assonance. 

' 'Adah and Zillah ! hear my voice, 

Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech : 

For a man have I slain* for wounding me, 
Even a young man for hurting me. 

Truly, Cain shall be avenged seven-fold, 
But Lamech seventy-and-sevenfold.' 

THE SONG OF THE VIRGIN MARY. Luke i. 46-55. 

And Mary said : 

46 My soul doth magnify the Lord, 

47 And my Spirit rejoicedt in God my Saviour, 

48 Because he looked upon the low estate of his handmaid. 

For, behold, from henceforth all generations will call me blessed. 

Scrivener, for the syndics of the University Press, Cambridge and London, 
1870. 

* The perfect, I have slain C , F^"?'7> Sept. a7reKTtiva,V\\\g. occidi), is prob- 
ably used in the spirit of arrogant boasting, to express the future with all the 
certainty of an accomplished fact. Chrysostom,Theodoret, Jerome, Rashi, 
set Lamech down as a murderer (of Cain), confessing his deed to ease his 
conscience ; but Aben-Ezra, Calvin, Herder, Ewald, Delitzsch, take the verb 
as a threat : 'I will slay any man who wounds me.' 

1 1 have throughout substituted the Greek aorists, i)ya\\ia<Tn', i7rt/3\tip£v, 
tTToinoEv, k.t.X., for the perfects of the A.V. ; but as the Magnificat is incor- 
porated into the Anglican Liturgy, such changes will scarcely be made. 



x l v iii INTR OD UCTIOK 

49 For the Mighty One did great things for me ; 

And holy is His name, 
60 And His mercy is from generation to generation 

Upon them that fear Him. 

51 He wrought strength with his arm : 

He scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 

52 He put down princes from thrones, 

And raised up them of low degree. 

53 The hungry he filled with good things ; 

And the rich he sent away empty. 
5i He gave help to Israel, His servant, 

In remembrance of His mercy 
55 (As he spake to our fathers) 

To Abraham* and his seed forever. 



Conclusion. 

In the preceding discussion I have barely touched upon 
the Old Testament, which would require a separate treat- 
ise. In some respects a revision of the English translation 
of the Hebrew Scriptures, especially the Book of Job and 
the Prophets, is even more needed than that of the Greek 
Testament. Shemitic scholarship is not so abundant in 
England and America as classical learning ; but it is far 
more critical and accurate in the nineteenth century than 
it was in the sixteenth and seventeenth. Important addi- 
tions to the Old Testament exegesis are now made almost 
every year. But if we are to wait for perfection, we shall 
have to wait forever. Let us make our work as perfect 
as we can, and let future generations make it still more 
perfect. 

The revision must be chiefly a work of Biblical scholar- 
ship. But its success will depend by no means on scholar- 
ship alone. The most thorough knowledge of Hebrew and 
Greek would, after all, only enable us to understand the 
letter and the historical relations of the Scripture, but not 

* TVp 'AfipaafjL must be connected with \Lvr\G%r\vai eXtovg, not with tXdXijaev, 
as in the Authorized Version. 



INTR OB UCTION. x i j x 

its soul, which lives in the body of the letter. The Bible 
is a divine as well as a human book, and reflects the thean- 
thropic character of the incarnate Logos. To understand, 
to translate, and to interpret the Word of God, we must be 
in sympathy with its spirit, which is the Holy Spirit. Pro- 
found sympathy with the ideas of the Bible, religious en- 
thusiasm, a reverent and devout spirit, breathe through the 
Vulgate, Luther's German, and the authorized English ver- 
sions, and gave them such enduring power ; and only the 
same qualities, united with superior scholarship, can com- 
mend the proposed revision to the acceptance of our 
Churches. 

No. 40 Bible House, New York, October 4, 1872. 

D 



ON 



A FRESH REVISION 



ENGLISH NEW TESTAMENT. 



BY 



J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D., 

CANON OF ST. TAtJl/S, 
AND IICI.SEAN rr.OFESSOR OF DIVINITY, CAMBRIDGE. 



SECOND EDITION, REVISED. 




NEWYORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 

1873. 



PREFACE 

TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



During the last summer, immediately before the Com- 
pany appointed for the revision of the English New Testa- 
ment held its first sitting, I was invited to read # a paper on 
the subject before a clerical meeting. Finding that I had 
already written more than I could venture to read even to 
a very patient and considerate audience, and receiving a 
request from my hearers at the conclusion that the paper 
should be printed, I determined to revise the whole and 
make additions to it before publication. The result is the 
present volume. Owing to various interruptions, its appear- 
ance has been delayed much longer than I had anticipated. 

This statement of facts was perhaps needed to justify 
the appearance of a book which, as occupying well-known 
ground, can not urge the plea of novelty, which has many 
imperfections in form, and which makes no pretensions to 
completeness. At all events, it appeared necessary to be 
thus explicit, in order to show that I alone am responsible 
for any expressions of opinion contained in this volume, 
and that they do not (except accidentally) represent the 
views of the Company of which I am a member. In pre- 
paring the original paper for the press, I have been careful 
not to go beyond verbal alterations where I was discussing 
the prospects of the new revision or the principles which 
in my opinion ought to guide it. On the other hand, I 



IV 



PREFACE 



have not scrupled to develop these principles freely, and to 
add fresh illustrations from time to time, but in most cases 
this has been done without any knowledge of the opinion 
of the majority of the Company ; and in the comparatively 
few instances where this opinion has become known to me, 
I have expressed my own individual judgment, which might 
or might not accord therewith. 

I ought to add, also, that I am quite prepared to find, on 
consultation with others, that some of the suggestions of- 
fered here are open to objections which I had overlooked, 
and which might render them impracticable in a version 
intended for popular use, whatever value they may have 
from a scholar's point of view. 

The hopeful anticipations w;hich I had ventured to ex- 
press before the commencement of the work have been 
more than realized hitherto in its progress. On this point 
I have not heard a dissentient voice among members of the 
Company. I believe that all who have taken part regular- 
ly in the work will thankfully acknowledge the earnestness, 
moderation, truthfulness, and reverence which have marked 
the deliberations of the Compaq, and which seem to jus- 
tify the most sanguine auguries. 

This feeling contrasts strangely with the outcry which 
has been raised against the work by those who have had 
no opportunity of witnessing its actual progress, who have 
been disturbed by rumors of its results either wholly false 
or only partially true, and who, necessarily judging on a 
prior i grounds, have been ready to condemn it unheard. 
This panic was perhaps not unnatural, and might have been 
anticipated. Meanwhile, however, other dangers from an 
unforeseen quarter have threatened the progress of the re- 
vision, but these are now happily averted ; and, so far as 
present appearances can be trusted, the momentary peril 
has resulted in permanent good, for the Company has been 



PREFACE. y 

taught by the danger which threatened it to feel its own 
strength and coherence, and there is every prospect that 
the work will be brought happily and successfully to a 
conclusion. 

Great misunderstanding seems to prevail as to the ulti- 
mate reception of the work. The alarm which has been 
expressed in some quarters can only be explained by a 
vague confusion of thought, as though the Houses of Con- 
vocation, while solemnly pledged to the furtherance of the 
work on definite conditions, were also pledged to its ulti- 
mate reception whether good or bad. If the distinction 
had been kept in view, it is difficult to believe that there 
w T ould have been even a momentary desire to repudiate the 
obligations of a definite contract. The Houses of Convo- 
cation are as free as the different bodies of Nonconform- 
ists represented in the Companies to reject the Ee vised 
Version, when it appears, if it is not satisfactory. I do not 
suppose that any member of either Company would think 
of claiming any other consideration for the work, when 
completed, than that it shall be judged by its intrinsic mer- 
its ; but, on the other hand, they have a right to demand 
that it shall be laid before the Church and the people of 
England in its integrity, and that a verdict shall be pro- 
nounced upon it as a whole. 

I can not close these remarks without expressing my 
deep thankfulness that I have been allowed to take part in 
this work of revision. I have spent many happy and profit- 
able hours over it, and made many friends who otherwise 
would probably have remained unknown to me. Even 
though the work should be terminated abruptly to-morrow, 
I, for one, should not consider it lost labor. 

In choosing my examples, I have generally avoided dwell- 
ing on passages which have been fully discussed by others ; 
but it was not possible to put the case fairly before the 



VI 



PREFACE. 



public without venturing from time to time on preoccupied 
ground, though in such instances I have endeavored to tread 
as lightly as possible. 

The discussion in the Appendix perhaps needs some 
apology. Though it has apparently no very direct bearing 
on the main subject of the volume, yet the investigation 
was undertaken, in the first instance, with a view to my 
work as a reviser; and hoping that the results might con- 
tribute towards permanently fixing the meaning of an ex- 
pression which occurs in the most familiar and most sacred 
of all forms of words, and which nevertheless has been and 
still is variously interpreted, I gladly seized this opportunity 
of placing them on record. 

Trinity College, Cambridge, April 3, 1871. 



PREFACE 

TO THE SECOND EDITIOX. 



Tins second edition is in all essential respects a reprint 
of the first. A few errors Lave been corrected, and one or 
two unimportant additions made, but the new matter alto- 
gether would not occupy more than a page. 

The reception accorded to this book has taken me by 
surprise, and the early call for a new edition would have 
prevented me from making any great changes, even if I 
had felt any desire to do so. To my critics, whether pub- 
lic or private, I can only return my very sincere thanks for 
their generous welcome of a work of whose imperfections 
the author himself must be only too conscious. 

From this expression of gratitude I see no reason to ex- 
cept the critique of Mr. Earle in a letter addressed to the 
editor of the Guardian ; but I am sure that he will pardon 
me if, while thankfully acknowledging the friendly tone of 
his letter, I venture entirely to dissent from a principle of 
translation to which he has lent the authority of his name. 

In fact, he has attacked the very position in my work 
which I confidently held, and still hold, to be impregnable. 
I had laid it down as a rule (subject, of course, to special 
exceptions) that, where the same word occurs in the same 
context in the original, it should be rendered by the same 
equivalent in the version (p. 33 seq.) ; or, as Mr. Earle ex- 
presses it, that " a verbal repetition in English should be 
employed to represent a verbal repetition in the Greek." 



viii PREFACE. 

Mr. Earle (I will employ his own words) would reverse this, 
and say that in many of my details he would practically 
come to my conclusion, but that the principle itself, with 
all the speciousness of its appearance, is essentially un- 
sound. This position he endeavors to establish by argu- 
ments, which I feel bound to meet, for I consider the prin- 
ciple which he assails to be essential to a thoroughly good 
translation. 

If, notwithstanding our opposite points of view, we had 
arrived at the same results, or, in other words, if Mr.Earle's 
exceptions to his principle of variety were coextensive or 
nearly coextensive with my own applications of my princi- 
ple of uniformity, I should have felt any discussion of his 
views to be superfluous; for then, so far as regards any 
practical issues, the difference between us would have been 
reduced to a mere battle of words. But when I find that 
Mr. Earle defends such a rendering as Matt, xviii., 33, 
" Shouldest not thou also have had compassion (l\vr\aai) on 
thy fellow-servant, even as I had jpity (^At'rjtxa) on thee ?" 
I feel that the difference between us is irreconcilable. In- 
deed, I had vainly thought that my illustrations (with one 
or two doubtful exceptions) would carry conviction in them- 
selves, and I confess myself a little surprised to find their 
cogency questioned by an English scholar of Mr. Earle's 
eminence. 

But, lest I should be misunderstood, let me say at the 
outset that I entirely agree with Mr. Earle in deprecating 
the mode of procedure which would substitute "the fidelity 
of a lexicon" for "the faithfulness of a translation." I am 
well aware that this is a real danger to careful minds trained 
in habits of minute verbal criticism, and I alwa} T s have 
raised and shall raise my voice against any changes which 
propose to sacrifice forcible English idiom to exact con- 
formity of expression. Eor instance, it would be mere 



PREFACE. i x 

pedantry to substitute " Bo not ye rather excel them ?" for 
"Are not ye much better than they?" in Matt. vi., 26 (o^x 
vixug fmWov licKptpzrz avruv) ; or " The hour hath ap- 
proached," for " The hour is at hand," in Matt, xxvi., 45 
(rjyyacev rj topa). But the point at issue seems to me to be 
wholly different. I can not for a moment regard this as a 
question of English idiom; and my objection to the variety 
of rendering which Mr. Earle advocates is that it does de- 
part from " the faithfulness of a translation," and substi- 
tutes, not, indeed, the fidelity of a lexicon, but the caprice 
of a translator. 

Mr. Earle says, " The stronghold of the Greek (I do not 
speak of Plato and Demosthenes, but of the New Testa- 
ment) is in the words ; the stronghold of the English lan- 
guage is in its phraseology and variability." This is not 
the distinction which I should myself give between the 
characteristics of the two languages. Even in its later 
stages, the wealth of particles, the power of inflection and 
composition, and the manifold possibilities of order, still 
constitute the peculiar superiority of the Greek over the 
English. But it matters little whether I am right or wrong 
here, for the objections to Mr. Earle's practical inferences 
are equally strong in either case. He first of all alleges 
examples where synonyms are coupled in English, and more 
especially in rendering from another language, as, for in- 
stance, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius's De Consola- 
tione P/iilosoj?hice, where claritudo is rendered " renoun 
and clernesse of linage," and censor " domesman or juge ;" 
and he then urges that as this method of double rendering 
was "manifestly inadmissible in translating Scripture," "the 
translators fell upon a device by which they allowed some 
play to the natural bent of the English language ; and 
where a Greek word occurs repeatedly in a context, they 
rather leaned to a variation of the rendering." 



x PREFACE. 

Now it is one thing to give a double rendering to a sin- 
gle word at any one occurrence, and another to give it two 
different renderings at two different occurrences in the same 
context. The two principles have nothing in common. In 
the former case the translation will at the worst be clumsy ; 
in the latter it must in many cases be absolutely misleading; 
for by splitting up the sense of the word, and giving one 
half to one part of the sentence and the remaining half to 
the other, a disconnection, perhaps even a contrast, is in- 
troduced, which has no place in the original. If, therefore, 
the English on any occasion furnishes no exact and coex- 
tensive equivalent for a given Greek word as used in a 
given context (and this difficulty must occur again and 
again in translation from any language to another), it will 
generally be the less evil of the two to select the word 
which comes nearest in meaning to the original, and to re- 
tain this throughout. 

But the examples of capricious varieties which I had 
chosen to illustrate this vicious principle of translation, and 
which Mr. Earle is prepared to defend, can not in most 
cases plead this justification, that a single English word 
does not adequately represent the Greek. It would re- 
quire far more minute scholarship than I possess to discern 
any difference in meaning between vldg and "son." Yet 
Mr. Earle stands forward as the champion of the rendering 
in Matt. xx., 20, "Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's 
children (vlwv) with her sons (wwv)." The particular ren- 
dering is comparatively unimportant in itself, but as illus- 
trating the capricious license of our translators it is highly 
significant. It introduces a variety for no reason at all ; 
and this variety is incorrect in itself ; for " the mother of 
Zebedee's children" is a wider expression than "the mother 
of Zebedee's sons," by which the evangelist intends only 
to describe her as the mother of James and John, with 



PREFACE. x j 

whom the narrative is concerned, and which neither implies 
nor suggests the existence of other brothers and sisters. 

Again, Mr. Earle is satisfied, and more than satisfied, with 
the rendering of Matt, xviii., 33, " Shouldest not thou also 
have had compassion (i\zr\aai) on thy fellow-servant, even 
as I had pity (i\\ir)aa) on thee ?" " If," he asks, " we com- 
pare our 'compassion — pity,' with the one Greek word, 
what loss is there in the variation ? Is there not a gain in 
breadth?" I. answer, a very serious loss; and I do not al- 
low that breadth (or, as I prefer to call it, looseness) is any 
gain where exact correspondence in the two clauses is es- 
sential to the main idea of the passage. What would be 
said if I were to suggest such translations as " Blessed are 
the pitiful (sAcTjjuovae), for they shall obtain mercy (t\zr)0n- 
(tovtcu)," in Matt, v., 7, or " If ye forgive (a^ijrf) not men 
their trespasses {irap cnrTw/uaTa), neither will your heavenly 
Father remit (afr'iaEi) your transgressions (jrapcnrTw/iaTa)" 
in Matt, vi., 15, or " Be ye therefore faultless (teXeiol) as 
your Father which is in heaven is perfect (teXeioq)" in Matt. 
v., 48 ? I do not doubt that if these passages had been so 
translated in our Authorized Version, the variations would 
have found admirers ; but as it is, who will question the 
vast superiority of the existing renderings, where the repe- 
tition of the English word corresponds to the repetition of 
the Greek % In all these passages the thought is one and the 
same, that the ideal of human conduct is the exact copying 
of the divine. In the other examples quoted our translators 
have preserved this thought unimpaired by repeating the 
same word, but in Matt.xviii., 33 it is marred by the double 
rendering " compassion, pity ;" while the idea of "fellow- 
feeling," which is implied in " compassion," and in which 
the chief fault lies, has no place in the original e XeeIv. 

Again, Mr. Earle defends the double rendering of Staipt- 
Gtig in 1 Cor. xii., 4, " There are diversities of gifts, but the 



Xll 



PREFACE. 



same Spirit; and there are differences oi administrations, 
but the same Lord ; and there are diversities of operations, 
but it is the same God, etc.," and seems even to regret the 
abandonment of Tyndale's triple rendering diversities, dif- 
ferences, divers manners. What again, I ask, would be said 
if I were to propose to translate 2 Cor. xi., 26, "In perils of 
waters, in dangers from robbers, in perils by mine own 
countrymen, in dangers from the heathen, in hazards in the 
city, in hazards in the wilderness, etc.," thus gaining breadth 
by varying the rendering of k.ivZvvoiq% Happily, conserva- 
tive feeling in this instance is enlisted on the right side, 
and it may be presumed that no change will be desired. 
But, so far as I can see, the two cases are exactly analo- 
gous ; the effect of the sentence in each case depending on 
the maintenance of the same word, which arrests the ear, 
and produces its effect by repetition, like the tolling of a 
bell 'or the stroke on an anvil. Indeed, I must conclude 
that my mind is differently constituted from Mr. Earle's 
when I find him defending the translation of James ii., 2, 
3, " If there come unto your assembly a man with a gold 
ring in goodly apparel (lv IgQ7\tl \ajnrpa), and there come 
in also a poor man in vile raiment (to-fl^n), and ye have re- 
spect unto him that weareth the gay clothing (r^v laOrjra 
rrjv Xa/unrpav), etc." Not only do I regard the variation 
here as highly artificial (a sufficient condemnation in itself), 
but it seems to me to dissipate the force of the passage, 
and therefore I am prepared to submit to the " cruel im- 
poverishment" by which the English would be made to con- 
form to the simplicity of the Greek. Nor again am I able 
to see why, in Rev. xvii., 6, lQa.vjj.aaa dav^a /uiya, " I won- 
dered with great admiration" is to be preferred to the nat- 
ural rendering, " I icondered with great wonder" as in 1 
Thess. hi., 9, tm iraari rrj \apa y \aipojuev Si v/uag is trans- 
lated" for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes," 



PREFACE. x [[[ 

and not "for all the gladness" In this passage from the 
Revelation the words immediately following (ver. 7) run in 
the English Version, "And the angel said unto me, Where- 
fore didst thou marvel {IdavjiaGaq)^ where, by the introduc- 
tion of a third rendering, a still further injury is inflicted on 
the compactness of the passage. 

So far with regard to the sense. But Mr. Earle urges 
that the sound must be consulted ; that the ear, for instance, 
requires the variations comjiassion, jnty, in Matt, xviii., 33, 
and wonder, admiration (he omits to notice marvel) in Rev. 
xvii., 6, 7; that generally there is this "broad modulatory 
distinction between the ancient tongues and the ^reat mod- 
em languages of Western Europe, that the former could 
tolerate reverberation to a degree which is intolerable to 
the latter ;" and that " perhaps there is not one of them 
that is more sensitive in this respect than the English." 

In reply to this, I will ask my readers whether there is 
any thing unpleasant to the ear in the frequent repetition 
of " perils" in the passage already quoted, 2 Cor. xi., 26, or 
of " blessed" in the beatitudes, Matt, v., 3-11. But this last 
reference suggests an application of the experimental test 
on a larger scale. I should find it difficult (and I venture 
to hope that Mr. Earle will agree with me here) to point to 
any three continuous chapters in the Xew Testament which 
are at once so vigorously and faithfully rendered, and in 
which the rhythm and sound so entirely satisfy the ear, as 
those which make up the Sermon on the Mount. Indeed, 
this portion of our Authorized Version deserves to be re- 
garded as a very model of successful translation. What, 
then, are the facts? In the original the reverberation is 
sustained throughout, beginning with the beatitudes and 
ending with the closing parable, so that there are not many 
verses without an instance, while some contain two or three. 
Happily, in our Authorized Version, this characteristic is 



xiv PREFACE. 

faithfully reproduced. The temptation to capricious va- 
riety to which our translators elsewhere give way is here 
foregone ; and, indeed, the whole number of the repetitions 
in the English is slightly greater than in the Greek ; for 
though, either from inadvertence or from the exigencies of 
translation, one is dropped here and there (e.g., Xa/uirei, Xa/u- 
xparu), giveth light, shine, v., 15, 16 ; bring, offer, Trpoacpipyg, 
irpoatyspE, v., 23, 24 ; cnroXvarj, airoXeXvfiivYjv, put away, di- 
vorced, v., 31, 32 ; liriopK.{)Guq, opKovc,forsioear, oaths, v., 33 ; 
afyaviZovai, (j)avoj(n, disfigure, appear, vi., 16 ; d^aavpi^re, 
Qqaavpovg, lay u/p, treasures, vi., 19 ; TrepizfiaXeTo, 7r^pLJ5aXw- 
H&a, arrayed, clothed, vi., 29, 31 ; fiirpM, fxeTptiTE, measure, 
mete (?), vii., 2 ; aJKoSo/^ati^ okmv, built, house, vii., 24), yet, 
on the other hand, the balance is more than redressed by 
the same rendering of different words in other parts (e.g., 
light, icaiovGiv, Xapirei, <f)Cjg,v., 14—16 ', fulfill, 7rXr)pw<jai,y£vr}~ 
rat, v., 17, 18; righteousness repeated, though SiKaioavvr) oc- 
curs only once in the original, v., 20 ; whosoever, nag b, og 
av,Y., 22 ; divorcement, divorced, airoaraaiov, a7roXeXvjuivr}v, 
v., 31, 32 ; forswear, swear, lirtopK^aetg, bjioaai, v., 33, 34 ; 
reward, fxiadov, airoSwau, vi., 2, 4, 5, 6, 16, 18 ; streets, pv/uaig, 
likciTuCjv, vi., 2, 5 ; day, daily, vriiuepov, Imovcriov, vi., 11 ; 
light, Xvxvog, Qwruvov, <j)ug, vi., 22, 23 ; raiment, arrayed, 
IvSvfjiaTog, TrapiefiaXtTo, vi., 28, 29 ; clothe, clothed, aji^dvvv- 
giv, irspifiaXtojuitOa, vi., 30, 31 ; good, ayaOov, KaXovg, vii., 17, 
18 ; beat, irpoaiirtGav, 7rpocrzKo\pav, vii., 25, 27). If my read- 
ers are of opinion that the general method adopted by our 
translators in the Sermon on the Mount is faulty, and that 
these three chapters would have gained by greater breadth 
and variety, I have nothing more to say ; but if they are 
satisfied with this method, then they have conceded every 
thing for which I am arguing.* 

* I confess myself quite unable to follow Mr. Earle's logic when he criti- 
cises what I had said of the Rheims Version. My words are (p. 44), " Of 



PREFACE. • xv 

But Mr. Earle proceeds : " There is no end to the curi- 
osities of scholarship, and the perilous minutiae that such a 
principle may lead to, if it is persevered in ;" and by way of 
illustration he adds, " Dr. Lightf oot seems to ignore what I 
should have regarded as an obvious fact, that it is hardly 
possible in modern English to make a play upon words 
compatible with elevation of style. It was compatible with 
solemnity in Hebrew, and also in the Hebrew -tinctured 
Greek of the 'New Testament, but in English it is not. Ex- 
plain it as you may, the fact is palpable. Does it not tax 
all our esteem for Shakspeare to put up with many a pas- 
sage of which in any other author we should not hesitate 
to say that it was deformed and debased by a jingle of 
word-sounds ?" 

To this I answer fearlessly that I certainly do desire to 
see the play of words retained in the English Version, 
wherever it can be done without forcing the English. I 
believe that our translators acted rightly when they ren- 
dered -^pwnzvoi, Karaxpwiizvoi, by use, abuse, in 1 Cor. vii., 
31 ; I believe that they were only wrong in translating 
KaTarofiri, irspiTojjLri, concision, circumcision, in Phil, iii., 2, 3, 
because the former is hardly a recognized English word, 
and would not be generally understood. I freely confess 
that in many cases, perhaps in most cases, the thing can not 

all the English versions, the Rhemish alone has paid attention to this point, 
and so far compares advantageously with the rest, to which, in most other re- 
spects, it is confessedly inferior." On this he remarks: "It is certainly un- 
fortunate for our author's position that, by his own showing, the version which 
has kept to his principle should nevertheless be confessedly inferior in most 
other respects, including, as I apprehend, the highest respects that can affect 
our judgment of a version of Holy Scripture. To put this admission with 
the clearness due to its importance : the Rheims Version is the best in that 
it has observed our author's principle, but as a rendering of Scripture it is the 
worst." Why unfortunate? Does experience suggest that the man or the 
book that is right on five points out of six, must be right on the sixth point 
also ? Does it not rather lead us to expect some element of right in the 
most wrong, and some element of wrong in the most right ? 

E 



XVI 



PREFACE. 



be done ; but I am sorry for it.* I can not for a moment 
acquiesce in Mr. Earle's opinion that it is incompatible with 
"solemnity," with " elevation of style." Above all, I repu- 
diate the notion, which seems to underlie whole paragraphs 
of Mr. Earle's critique, that it is the business of a translator, 
when he is dealing with the Bible, to improve the style of 
his author, having before my eyes the warning examples of 
the past, and believing that all such attempts will end in 
discomfiture.f Is it not one great merit of our English 

* On my suggestion that in 2 Thess. iii., 11, the play on ipya.X.opkvovq, 
7rspispyaZophovg, might be preserved by the words business, busy-bodies, Mr. 
Earle remarks: "As a matter of history, the word business has no radical 
connection with busy : it is merely a disguised form of the French besognes. 
This is, however, a secondary matter, because, if the word-play be desirable 
as a matter of English taste, these words would answer the purpose just as 
well as if their affinity were quite established." Without hazarding any 
opinion on a question on which Mr. Earle is so much more competent to 
speak than myself, I would venture to remark: (1.) That the direct deriva- 
tion of business from busy is maintained by no less an authority than Jacob 
Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, ii., p. 237 seq. ; (2.) That other authorities 
maintain (whether rightly or wrongly I do not venture to say) the radical 
connection of the Teutonic words busy (Engl.), bezig (Dutch), with the Ro- 
mance words besogne, bisogna ; and (3.) That this very play of words occurs 
in the earliest English translations of the Scriptures, the Wicliffite Versions, 
in 1 Cor. vii., 32, "I wole you for to be withoute bisynesse (aiupi/xvov e,Vu\g. 
sine sollicitudine). Sothli he that is withoute wyf is bysy (p,epip.vei,,Vvlg. sol- 
licitus est) what thingis ben of the Lord." 

Mr. Earle remarks that in 2 Thess. iii., 11, "Even the Rheims Version 
keeps clear of this (the play of words) : it has 'working nothing, but curiously 
meddling.'" The fact is, that after its wont it has translated the Vulgate, 
"Nihil operantes sed curiose agentes," in which this characteristic of the 
original has disappeared. 

This paronomasia is not confined to St. Paul, but occurs also in Aristides, 
ii., p. 418, raura elpyaarai fxsv .... 7repiEipya(jTai Sk /xnda{xuJQ, just as the 
apostle's (ppovelv, caxppovelv (Rom. xii.,3) has a parallel in a passage quoted 
by Stobseus as from Charondas, Floril., xliv., 40, 7rpoo-7roieio9u) 6k e/caoroc twp 

7T0\lTU)V GUXppOVUV /XCtWoV 7} typOVUV. 

f The anxiety to impart dignity to the language of the apostles and evan- 
gelists reaches a climax in A Liberal Translation of the New Testament, 
being an attempt to translate the Sacred Writings with the same Freedom, 
Spirit, and Elegance with which other English Translations from the Greek 
Classics have lately been executed: by E. Harwood, London, 1768. In this 
strange production the following is a sample of St. Luke's narrative (xi., 40) : 
"Absurd and preposterous conduct! Did not the Great Being, who made 



PMEJFA.CE. xvii 

Version, regarded as a literary work, that it has naturalized 
in our language the magnificent Hebraisms of the original 1 
But the case before us is even stronger than this. The 
paronomasia is a characteristic of St. Paul's style, and 
should be reproduced (so far as the genius of the English 
language permits) like any other characteristic. That it is 
admissible, the example of Shakspeare which Mr. Earle ad- 
duces, and that of Tennyson, whose " name and fame" he 
himself has already quoted, and who abounds in similar ex- 
amples of alliteration and assonance, not to mention other 
standard writers whether of the Elizabethan or of the Vic- 
torian era, are sufficient evidence. I am not concerned to 
defend Shakspeare's literary reputation, which may be left 
to itself ; and I have certainly no wish to maintain that he 
was entirely free from the affectations of his age ; but I am 
unfeignedly surprised to find plays on words condemned 
wholesale, as incompatible with elevation of style. Under 

the external form, create the internal intellectual powers, and will he not he 
more solicitous for the purity of the mind than for the showy elegance of the 
body?" and this again of St. John's (iii., 32) : "But though this exalted per- 
sonage freely publishes and solemnly attests those heavenly doctrines, etc." 
The parable of the prodigal son in the former begins (xv., 11), " A gentleman 
of splendid family and opulent fortune had two sons." Even Dr. Johnson 
himself, the great master of grandiloquent English, could not tolerate this 
book. "Returning through the house," we are told, "he stepped into a 
small study or book-room. The first book he laid his hands upon was Har- 
wood's Liberal Translation of the New Testament. The passage which first 
caught his eye was that sublime apostrophe in St. John upon the raising of 
Lazarus, Jesus wept, which Harwood had conceitedly rendered, And Jesus, 
the Saviour of the world, burst into a flood of tears. He contemptuously threw 
the book aside, exclaiming ' Puppy !' " (Appendix to BoswelTs Life of John- 
son, in Croker's edition, London, 1866, p. 836.) Johnson's biographer, Bos- 
well, speaks of it as " a fantastical translation of the New Testament in mod- 
ern phrase" (p. 506). See also Mr. Matthew Arnold's opinion (quoted below, 
p. 159) on a very similar attempt at a revised version by Franklin. I am 
quite sure that Mr. Earle's suffrage would be on the same side ; but when he 
asks that the distinctive features of the sacred writers may be sacrificed to 
" elevation of style," and pleads that the language may be made more "full- 
bodied" to suit " the public taste" than it is in the original, is he not leading 
us, though by a different road, to the edge of the very same precipice ? 



xviii PREFACE. 

certain circumstances, paronomasia, alliteration, and the 
like, are not only very natural, but, as indicating intensity 
of feeling, may produce even a tragic effect. With the ap- 
preciation of a great genius, Shakspeare himself has ex- 
plained and justified their use under such circumstances. 
When John of Gaunt, in his last illness, is yisited by Kich- 
ard, and, in reply to the king's inquiry, keeps harping on 
his name, 

"Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old," 

the king asks, 

"Can sick men play so nicely with their names?" 

The old man's answer is, 

"No ; misery indices sport to mode itself." 

The very intensity of his grief seeks relief in this way.* 

Again, who will question the propriety of the play on 
words in Queen Elizabeth's outburst of anger against Glou- 
cester after the murder of her children? 

" Cousins, indeed ; and by their uncle cozen'd 
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life." 

The very fierceness of her wrath seeks expression in the 
iteration of the same sounds. 

And in cases where no intensity flLpassion exists, there 
may be some other determining m^iv&. Thus we find a 
tendency in all languages to rerftition of sound w T here a 
didactic purpose is served. Oirfis motive, the fondness 
for rhyme, alliteration, and the we, in the familiar prov- 
erbs of all languages, affords ample illustration, as in Waste 
not, want not; Forewarned, forearmed ; Man proposes, 
God disposes; Compendia dispendia ; TraOrjjuaTa fxaBn^ara. 
To this category we may assign St. Paul's jurj v-nrtpeppovuv 
Trap' o §u (jypovtiv, aXXa (ppovuv tig to <iw(j)poveiv (Rom. xii., 
3). Indeed, it would not be difficult to show that in every 

* Similarly Cicero, speaking of the Sicilians playing on the name of Verres, 
says (Verr., Act ii., 1, 46), "etiam ridiculi inveniebantur ex dolore." 



PBEFACE. xix 

instance the apostle had some reason for employing this 
figure, and that he did not use it as a mere rhetorical play- 
thing. We may find ourselves unable, in any individual 
case, to reproduce the same effect in English, and thus may 
be forced to abandon the attempt in despair ; but not the 
less "earnestly shall we protest against the principle that the 
genius of our language requires us to abstain from the at- 
tempt under any circumstances, and that a form of speech 
which is natural in itself and common to all languages must 
be sacrificed to some fancied ideal of an elevated style. 

Trinity College, St. Johns Boy, 1871. 



* 






CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. St. Jerome's Revision of the Latin Bible 23 

II. Authorized Version of the English Bible 29 

III. Lessons suggested by these Historical Parallels 31 

IV. Necessity for a fresh Revision of the Authorized Version... 34 

§ 1. False Readings 36 

§ 2. Artificial distinctions created 46 

§ 3. Real distinctions obliterated 65 

§ 4. Faults of Grammar 80 

§ 5. Faults of Lexicography 118 

§ 6. Treatment of Proper Names, Official Titles, etc 127 

§ 7. Archaisms, Defects in the English, Errors of the 

Press, etc 144 

V. Prospects of the New Revision 157 

Appendix on the words linovaioc, Trepiovaioc 163 

Indices 185 



A FRESH REVISION 

OF THE 

ENGLISH NEW TESTAMENT. 



i 

More than two centuries had elapsed since the first Latin 
Version of the Scriptures was made, when the variations and 
errors of the Latin Bible began to attract the attention of 
students and to call for revision. It happened providentially 
that, at the very moment when the need was felt, the right 
man was forthcoming. In the first fifteen centuries of her 
existence the Western Church produced no Biblical scholar 
who could compare with St. Jerome in competence for so 
great a task. At the suggestion of his ecclesiastical superior, 
Damasus, bishop of Rome, he undertook this work, for which 
many years of self-denying labor had eminently fitted him. 

It is no part of my design to give a detailed account of 
this undertaking. I wish only to remark, that when Jerome 
applied himself to his task, he foresaw that he should expose 
himself to violent attacks, and that this anticipation was not 
disappointed by the result. " Who," he asks, in his Preface 
to the Gospels, the first portion of the work which he com- 
pleted, " w T ho, whether learned or unlearned, when he takes 
up the volume, and finds that what he reads differs from the 
flavor he has once tasted, will not immediately raise his voice 
and pronounce me guilty of forgery and sacrilege for daring 
to add, to change, to correct any thing in the ancient books?"* 
* Op. , x. , 660 (ed. Vallarsi). 



24 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

Again and again he defends himself against his antagonists. 
His temper, naturally irritable, was provoked beyond measure 
by these undeserved attacks, and betrayed him into language 
which I shall not attempt to defend. Thus writing to Mar- 
cella,* he mentions certain "poor creatures (homunculos) who 
studiously calumniate him for attempting to correct some 
passages in the Gospels against the authority of the ancients 
and the opinion of the whole world." "I could afford to de- 
spise them," he says, "if I stood upon my rights, for a lyre is 
played in vain to an ass." " If they do not like the water 
from the purest fountain-head, let them drink of the muddy 
streams." And after more to the same effect, he returns 
again at the close of the letter to these " two-legged donkeys 
(bipedes asellos)," exclaiming, "Let them read, Rejoicing in 
hope, serving the time ; let us read, Rejoicing in hope, serving 
the Lord yf let them consider that an accusation ought under 
no circumstances to be received against an elder ; let us read, 
Against an elder receive not an accusation but before two or 
three witnesses ; them that sin rebuke.\ Let them be satisfied 
with, It is a human saying, and worthy of all acceptation; 
let us err with the Greeks, that is, with the apostle who spoke 
in Greek, It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all accepta- 
tion.^ And elsewhere, referring to these same detractors, 
he writes, with a severity which was not undeserved, " Let 
them read first and despise afterward, lest they appear to 
condemn works of which they know nothing, not from delib- 
erate judgment, but from the prejudice of hatred."|| "Thus 
much I say in reply to my traducers, who snap at me like 
dogs, maligning me in public and reading me in a corner, at 
once my accusers and my defenders, seeing that they approve 
in others what they disapprove in me."| 

If these attacks had been confined to personal enemies like 

* Epist., 28 (i., p. 133). f The reading icaipy for Kvpiy, Rom. xii., 11. 

% The omission of the clause d fir) «7ti Svo ij rpiwv [xaprvpuv, 1 Tim. v., 19. 
§ The reading avQpwTrivoQ for kigtoq, 1 Tim. iii., 1. 
|| Qp.,ix.,684. f Op., ix., 1408. 



ST. JEROME'S REVISION OF THE LA TIN BIBLE. 2 5 

Rufinus,* who were only retaliating upon Jerome the harsh 
treatment which they had received at his hands, his com- 
plaints would not have excited much sympathy. But even 
friends looked coldly or suspiciously on his noble work. His 
admirer, the great Augustine himself, wrote to deprecate an 
undertaking which might be followed by such serious results. 
He illustrated-his fears by reference to the well-known inci- 
dent to which Jerome's version of the Book of Jonah had 
given occasion, as a sample of the consequences that might 
be expected to ensue. A certain bishop had nearly lost his 
flock by venturing to substitute Jerome's rendering "hedera" 
for " cucurbita," and could only win them back again by re- 
instating the old version which he had abandoned. They 
would not tolerate a change in an expression " which had 
been fixed by time in the feelings and memory of all, and had 
been repeated through so many ages in succession. "f 

Of the changes which Jerome introduced into the text of 
the New Testament, the passage quoted above affords suffi- 
cient illustration. In the Old Testament a more arduous task 
awaited him. The Latin Version which his labors were des- 
tined to supersede had been made from the Septuagint. He 
himself undertook to revise the text in conformity with the 
original Hebrew. It will appear strange to our own age that 
this was the chief ground of accusation against him. All the 
Greek and Latin churches, it was urged, had hitherto used 
one and the same Bible ; but this bond of union would be 
dissolved by a new version made from a different text. Thus 
the utmost confusion would ensue. Moreover, what injury 
might not be done to the faith of the weaker brethren by 
casting doubt on the state of the sacred text ? What wounds 
might not be inflicted on the pious sentiments of the believer 
by laying sacrilegious hands on language hallowed by long 
time and association ? 

* See Hieron., Op. , ii. , 660, where Rufinus exclaims, "Istud commissum die 
quomodo emendabitur ? iramo, nefas quomodo expiabitur ?" with more to the 
same effect. t Hieron. , Epist . , 101 (i. , 636 seq. ). 



26 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF TEE N. TEST. 

But, independently of the dangerous consequences which 
might be expected, no words were too strong to condemn 
the arrogance and presumption of one who thus ventured to 
set aside the sacred text as it had been used by all branches 
and in all ages of the Church from the beginning. To this 
cruel taunt Jerome replied nobly: "I do not condemn, I do 
not blame the Seventy, but I confidently prefer the apostles 
to them all."* " I beseech you, reader, do not regard my la- 
bors as throwing blame on the ancients. Each man offers 
what he can for the tabernacle of God.f Some, gold, and 
silver, and precious stones ; others, fine linen, and purple, and 
scarlet, and blue : I shall hold myself happy if I have offered 
skins and goats' hair. And yet the apostle considers that the 
more despised members are more necessary (1 Cor. xii.,22)."| 

Moreover, there was a very exaggerated estimate of the 
amount of change which his revision would introduce. Thus 
Augustine, when endeavoring to deter him, speaks of his new 
translation; Jerome, in reply, tacitly corrects his illustrious 
correspondent, and calls the work a revision.% And through- 
out he holds the same guarded language : he protests that he 
has no desire to introduce change for the mere sake of change, 
and that only such alterations will be made as strict fidelity 
to the original demands. His object is solely to place the 
Hebraica Veritas before his readers in the vernacular tongue, 
and to this object he is steadfast. 

In executing this great work, Jerome was in constant com- 
munication with Jewish rabbis, who were his Hebrew teach- 
ers, and to whom he was much indebted in many ways. How 
great a gain this assistance was to his revision, and how large- 
ly after ages have profited by the knowledge thus brought to 
bear on the sacred text, I need hardly say. We may suspect 
(though no direct notice on this point is preserved) that with 

* Op. , ix. , 6. f Exod. xxv. , 2 seq. % Op. , ix. , 460. 

§ See VLieron. , Fpist. ,104, i., 637, for Augustine's letter ("Evangelium ex 
Gneco interpretatus es"), and Epist., 112, i., 753, for Jerome's reply ("in 
Novi Testamenti emendatione"). See Dr. Westcott, in Smith's Dictionary of 
the Bible, s. v. Vulgate, ii. , p. 1696. 



ST. JEROME'S REVISION OF THE LATIN BIBLE. 2 7 

his contemporaries this fact was prominent among the counts 
of the indictment against him. At least it is certain that 
they set their faces against his substitution of the Hebrew 
text for the Septuagint Version on the ground that the for- 
mer had been tampered with by the malignity and obduracy 
of the Jews. But, if this suspicion wrongs them, and they 
did not object to his availing himself of such extraneous aid, 
then they evinced greater liberality than has always been 
shown by the opponents of revision in later years. 

Happily Jerome felt strong in the power of truth, and could 
resist alike the importunity of friends and the assaults of foes. 
His sole object was to place before the Latin-speaking church- 
es the most faithful representation of the actual words of the 
sacred text, and the consciousness of this great purpose nerved 
him with a strength beyond himself. The character of this 
father will not kindle any deep affection or respect. We are 
repelled by his coarseness and want of refinement, by his as- 
perity of temper, by his vanity and self-assertion. We look 
in vain for that transparent simplicity which is the true foun- 
dation of the highest saintliness. But in this instance the 
nobler instincts of the Biblical scholar triumphed over the 
baser passions of the man ; and in his lifelong devotion to 
this one object of placing the Bible in its integrity before the 
Western Church, his character rises to true sublimity. "I 
beseech you," he writes, " pour out your prayers to the Lord 
for me, that so long as I am in this poor body I may write 
something acceptable to you, useful to the Church, and wor- 
thy of after ages. Indeed, I am not moved overmuch by the 
judgments of living men : they err on the one side or on the 
other through affection or through hatred."* "My voice," 
he says elsewhere, "shall never be silent, Christ helping me. 
Though my tongue be cut off, it shall still stammer. Let 
those read who will; let those who will not, reject. "f And, 
inspired with a true scholar's sense of the dignity of consci- 
entious work for its own sake, irrespective of any striking 

* Qp.,ix.,136t. f Id. ib., 1526. 



28 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

results, after mentioning the pains which it has cost him to 
unravel the entanglement of names in the Books of Chroni- 
cles, he recalls a famous word of encouragement addressed 
of old by Antigenidas the flute-player to his pupil Ismenias, 
whose skill had failed to catch the popular fancy: "Play to 
me and to the Muses." So Jerome describes his own set pur- 
pose : " Like Ismenias, I play to myself and to mine, if the 
ears of the rest are deaf."* 

Thus far I have #welt on the opposition which Jerome en- 
countered on all hands, and the dauntless resolution with 
which he accomplished his task. Let me now say a few 
words on the subsequent fate of his revision, for this also is 
an instructive page in history. f When completed, it received 
no authoritative sanction. His patron, pope Damasus, at 
whose instigation he had undertaken the task, was dead. The 
successors of Damasus showed no favor to Jerome or to his 
work. The Old Latin still continued to be read in churches : 
it was still quoted in the writings of divines. Even Augus- 
tine, who, after the completion of the task, seems to have 
overcome his misgivings, and speaks in praise of Jerome's 
work, remains constant to the older version. But first one 
writer, and then another, begins to adopt the revised transla- 
tion of Jerome. Still its recognition depends on the caprice 
or the judgment of individual men. Even the bishops of 
Rome had not yet discovered that it was " authentic." One 
pope will use the Hieronymian revision ; a second will retain 
the Old Latin ; while a third will use either indifferently, and 
a fourth will quote from the one in the Old Testament and 
from the other in the New. \ As late as two centuries after 
Jerome's time, Gregory the Great can still write that he in- 
tends to avail himself of either indifferently, as his purpose 
may require, since " the Apostolic See, over which, by the 

* C^.,ix.,1408, "Mihimet ipsi et meis juxta, Ismeniam canens, si aures 
surdse sunt ceterorum." 

f The history of the gradual reception of Jerome's revision is traced in 
Kaulen's Geschichte derVidgata,Y)A90 seq. (Mainz, 1 868). 

t These statements may be verified by the quotations in Kaulen's work. 



AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 29 

grace of God, he presides, uses both."* Thus slowly, but sure- 
ly, Jerome's revision won its way, till at length, some centu- 
ries after its author's death, it drove its elder rivals out of 
the field, and became the one recognized version of the Bible 
throughout the Latin churches. 



II. 

I can not forbear to call attention in passing to the close 
parallel which these facts present to the history of the so- 
called Authorized Version. This too, like Jerome's revision, 
was undertaken amid many misgivings, and, when it appeared, 
was received with coldness or criticised with severity. "When 
the proposal for a revision was first brought forward, " my 
Lord of London" is reported to have said that " if every 
man's humor should be followed there would be no end of 
translating." The translators themselves, when they issue 
their work to the public, deprecate the adverse criticism 
which doubtless they saw very good reason to apprehend. 
Such a work as theirs, they say in the opening paragraph of 
the Preface to the Reader, "is welcomed with suspicion in- 
stead of love, and with emulation instead of thanks; . . . 
and if there be any hole left for cavil to enter (and cavil, if 
it do not find a hole, will make one), it is sure to be miscon- 
strued, and in danger to be. condemned. This will easily be 
granted by as many as know story or have any experience. 
For was there ever any thing projected that savored any 
way of newness or renewing but the same endured many a 
storm of gainsaying or opposition?" and again: "Whosoever 
attempteth any thing for the public (especially if it pertain 
to religion, and to the opening and clearing of the Word of 
God), the same setteth himself upon a stage to be glouted 

* Greg. Magn. , Mor. in lob. , Epist. ad fin. ' ' Novam translationem dissero ; 
sed cum probationis causa exigit, nunc novam,nunc veterem per testimonia 
assume- ; ut, quia sedes Apostolica cui Deo auctore prassideo utraque utitur, 
mei quoque labor studii ex utraque fulciatur" (0/>., i., p. 6, Venet., 1768). 



30 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

upon by every evil eye, yea, he casteth himself headlong upon 
pikes, to be gored by every sharp tongue. For he that rned- 
dleth with men's religion in any part, meddleth with their 
custom, nay, with their freehold ; and though they find no 
content in that which they have, yet they can not abide to 
hear of altering:." 

The parallel, moreover, extends to the circumstances of its 
reception. It seems now to be an established fact (so far as 
any fact in history which involves a comprehensive negative 
can be regarded as established) that the Revised Version 
never received any final authorization either from the eccle- 
siastical or from the civil powers ; that it was not sanctioned 
either by the Houses of Parliament, or by the Houses of Con- 
vocation, or by the king in council. The Bishops' Bible still 
continued to be read in churches ; the Geneva Bible was 
still the familiar volume of the fireside and closet.* Several 
years after the appearance >of the Revised Version, Bishop 
Andrewes, though himself one of the revisers, still continues 
to quote from an older Bible. Yet, notwithstanding all ad- 
verse circumstances, it overpowered both its rivals by the 
force of superior merit. It was found to be, as one had said 
long before of Jerome's revision, " et verborum tenacior et 
perspicuitate sententiae clarior ;"f and this was the secret of 
its success. " Thus," writes Dr. Westcott, " at the very time 
when the monarchy and the Church were, as it seemed, final- 
ly overthrown, the English people, by their silent and unani- 
mous acceptance of the new Bible, gave a sjDontaneous testi- 

* The printing of the Bishops' Bible was stopped as soon as the new revision 
was determined upon. The last edition of the former was published in 1606. 
The Revised Version states on its title-page (1611) that it is " Appointed to 
be read in Churches," but we are not told by whom or how it was appointed. 
As the copies of the Bishops' Bible used in the churches were worn out, they 
would probably be replaced by the Revised Version ; but this seems to have 
been the only advantage which was accorded to it. On the other hand, the 
Geneva Bible continued to be printed by the king's printer some years after 
the appearance of the Revised Version, and was still marked " Cum privilegio 
Regise majestatis." 

t Isidor. Hispal. , Etym. , vi. , 4 ; comp. De Off. Eccl. , i. , 12. 




LESSONS SUGGESTED BY THESE HIST PARALLELS. 31 

mony to the principles of order and catholicity of which both 
were an embodiment." "A revision which embodied the 
ripe fruit of nearly a century of labor, and appealed to the 
religious instinct of a great Christian people, gained by its 
own internal character a vital authority which could never 
have been secured by any edict of sovereign rulers."* 

But the parallel may be carried a step farther. In both 
these cases alike, as we have seen, God's law of progressive 
improvement, which in animal and vegetable life has been 
called the principle of natural selection, was vindicated here, 
so that the inferior gradually disappeared before the superior 
in the same kind; but in both cases also the remnants of an 
earlier Bible held and still hold their ground, as a testimony 
to the past. As in parts of the Latin Service-books the Vul- 
gate has not even yet displaced the Old Latin, which is still 
retained either in its pristine or in its partially amended form, 
so also in our own Book of Common Prayer an older version 
still maintains its place in the Psalter and in the occasional 
sentences, as if to keep before our eyes the progressive his- 
tory of our English Bible. 



III. 

All history is a type, a parable. The hopes and the mis- 
givings, the failures and the successes of the past reproduce 
themselves in the present ; and it appeared to me that at 
this crisis, when a revision of our English Bible is imminent, 
we might with advantage study the history of that revised 
translation, which alone among Biblical Versions can bear 
comparison with our own in its circulation and influence. 

And, first of all, in the gloomy forebodings w T hich have ush- 
ered in this scheme for a new revision, we seem to hear the 
very echo of those warning voices, which happily fell dead on 
the ear of the resolute Jerome. The alarming consequences 
which some anticipate from any attempt to meddle with our 

* History of the English Bible, p. 158, 160. 

F 



32 LIOHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

time-honored version have their exact counterpart in the 
apprehensions by which his contemporaries sought to deter 
him. The danger of estranging divers churches and con- 
gregations at present united in the acceptance of a common 
Bible, and the danger of perplexing the faith of individual 
believers by suggesting to them variations of text and uncer- 
tainties of interpretation — these are now, as they were then, 
the twin perils by which it is sought to scare the advocates 
of revision. 

Moreover, there is the like exaggerated estimate of the 
amount of change which any body of revisers would proba- 
bly introduce. To this we can only give the same answer 
as Jerome. Not translation, but revision, is the object of all 
who have promoted this new movement. There is no inten- 
tion of snapping the thread of history by the introduction of 
a new version. Our English Bible owes its unrivaled merits 
to the principle of revision, and this principle it is proposed 
once more to invoke. " To whom ever," say the authors of 
our Received Version, "was it imputed for a failing (by such 
as were wise) to go over that which he had done, and to 
amend it where he saw cause ?" " Truly, good Christian 
reader, Ave never thought from the beginning that we should 
need to make a new translation, nor yet to make a bad one 
a good one . . . but to make a good one better . . . that 
hath been our endeavor, that our mark." 

Nor again will the eminence of antagonists deter the pro- 
moters of this movement, if they feel that they have truth on 
their side. Augustine was a greater theologian, as well as a 
better man, than Jerome. But in this matter he was treading 
on alien ground ; he had not earned the right to speak. On 
the other hand, a life-long devotion to the study of the Bibli- 
cal text in the original languages had filled Jerome with the 
sense alike of the importance of the work and of the responsi- 
bility of his position. He could not be deterred by the fears 
of any adversaries, however good and however able. He felt 
the iron hand of a strong necessity laid upon him, and he 



LESSOXS SUGGESTED BY THESE HIST. PARALLELS. 33 

could not choose but open out to others the stores of script- 
ural wealth which he himself had been permitted to amass. 

And again, we may take courage from the results which 
followed from his design, dauntlessly and persistently carried 
out. None of the perilous consequences which friend and foe 
alike had foreboded did really ensue. There was, indeed, a 
long interval of transition, during which the rival versions 
contended for supremacy ; but no weakening of individual 
faith, no alienation of churches, can be traced to this source. 
The great schism of the Church, the severance of East and 
West, was due to human passion and prejudice, to fraud, and 
self-will, and ambition. History does not mention any re- 
laxation of the bonds of union as the consequence of Jerome's 
work. On the contrary, the Vulgate has been a tower of 
strength to the Latin churches, as Jerome foresaw that it 
would be. He labored for conscience sake, more than con- 
tent if his work proved acceptable to one or two intimate 
friends ; he sought not the praise of men ; his own genera- 
tion viewed his labors with suspicion or hatred, and he has 
.been rewarded with the universal gratitude of after ages. 

Nor is it uninstructive to observe that the very point on 
which his contemporaries laid the greatest stress in their 
charges against him has come to be regarded by ourselves as 
his most signal merit. To him we owe it that in the West- 
ern churches the Hebrew original, and not the Septuagint 
Version, is the basis of the people's Bible ; and that a broad 
and indelible line has been drawn once for all between the 
canon of the Old Testament as known to the Hebrew nation, 
and the later accretions which had gathered about it in the 
Greek and Latin Bibles. Thus we are reaping the fruits of 
his courage and fidelity. We are the proper heirs of his la- 
bors. The Articles of the Church of England still continue 
to quote St. Jerome's authority for the distinction between 
the canonical and apocryphal books, which the Council of 
Trent did its best to obscure. 

But there is yet another lesson to be learned from the his- 



34 LIGHTFOOT OK A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

tory of Jerome's revision. The circumstances of its reception 
are full of instruction and encouragement. It owed nothing, 
as we have seen, to official sanction ; it won its way by ster- 
ling merit. Now let us suppose that the revision which we 
are about to undertake is successfully accomplished. How 
are we to deal with it? If the work commends itself at once 
to all or to a large majority as superior to the present version, 
then let it by all means be substituted by some formal au- 
thorization. But this is quite too much to expect. Though 
St. Jerome's revision was incomparably better than the Old 
Latin, though the superiority of our received English version 
to its predecessors is allowed on all hands, no such instanta- 
neous welcome was accorded to either. They had to run the 
gauntlet of adverse - criticism ; they fought their way to ac- 
ceptance inch by inch. I suppose that no one who takes 
part in this new revision is so sanguine as to hope that his 
work will be more tenderly treated. This being so, it does 
not seem to be necessary, and it is perhaps not even advisa- 
ble, that the new Revised Version, if successfully completed, 
should at once authoritatively displace the old. Only let it 
not be prohibited. Give it a fair field, and a few years will 
decide the question of superiority. I do not myself consider 
it a great evil that for a time two concurrent versions should 
be in use. This, at least, seems a simple practical solution, 
unless, indeed, there should be such an immediate conver- 
gence of opinion in favor of the revised version as past ex- 
perience does not encourage us to expect. 



IV. 

But let it be granted that the spectres which a timid ap- 
prehension calls into being are scared away by the light of 
history and experience, and that the dangerous consequences 
of revision are shown to be imaginary ; we have still to ask 
whether there is sufficient reason for undertaking such a 
work, or (in other words) whether the defects of the existing 



NECESSITY FOR A FRESH REVISION OF A UTH. VERS. 35 

version are such as to call for systematic amendment ? Here 
again we are met by the same objection, of which our trans- 
lators were obliged to take notice : " Many men's mouths," 
they write, " have been open a good while (and yet are not 
stopped) with speeches about the translation so long in hand 
. . . and ask what may be the reason, what the necessity of 
the employment : Hath the Church been deceived, say they, 
all this while ? Hath her sweet bread been mingled with 
leaven, her silver with dross, her wine with water, her milk 
with lime ?" 

In addressing myself to this question, I can not attempt 
to give an exhaustive answer. Materials for such an answer 
will be found scattered up and down Biblical Commentaries 
and other exegetical works.*' In Archbishop Trench's in- 
structive volume On the Authorized Version of the New 
Testament, published a few years ago, they are gathered into 
a focus ; and quite recently, in anticipation of the impending 
revision, Bishop Ellicott has stated the case concisely, giving 
examples of different classes of errors which call for correc- 
tion. For a fuller justification of the advocates of revision I 
would refer to these and similar works, confining myself to a 
few more prominent points, in which our version falls behind 
the knowledge of the age, and offering some examples in il- 
lustration of each. While doing so, I shall be led necessarily 
to dwell almost exclusively on the defects of our English Bi- 
ble, and to ignore its merits. But I trust it will be unneces- 
sary for me, on this account, to deprecate adverse criticism. 
No misapprehension is more serious or more unjust than the 
assumption that those who advocate revision are blind to the 
excellence of the existing version. It is the very sense of 
this excellence which prompts the desire to make an admira- 
ble instrument more perfect. On the other hand, they can 
not shut their eyes to the fact that the assiduous labors of 
scholars and divines during two centuries and a half have 

* For the literature of the subject, see Professor Plumptre's interesting ar- 
ticle in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, s. v. Version, Authorized, p. 1679. 



36 LIGHTFOOT ON A FMESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

not been fruitless, and they are naturally anxious to pour 
into the treasury of the temple these accumulated gains of 
many generations. 

And first of all let us boldly face the fact that the most 
important changes in which a revision may result will be due 
to the variations of reading in the Greek text. It was not 
the fault, it was the misfortune, of the scholars from Tyndale 
downward, to whom we owe our English Bible, that the only 
text accessible to them was faulty and corrupt. I need not 
take up time in recapitulating the history of the received 
text, which will be known to all. It is sufficient to state 
that all textual critics are substantially agreed On this point, 
though they may differ among themselves as to the exact 
amount of change which it will be necessary to introduce. 

No doubt, when the subject of various readings is men- 
tioned, grave apprehensions will arise in the minds of some 
persons. But this is just the case where more light is wanted 
to allay the fears which a vague imagination excites. The 
recent language of alarmists on this point seems incredible 
to those who have paid any attention to the subject. I can 
only state my own conviction that a study of the history and 
condition of the Greek text solves far more difficulties than 
it creates. More especially it brings out the fact of the very 
early and wide diffusion of the New Testament writings 
with a clearness and a cogency which is irresistible, and thus 
bears most important testimony to their genuineness and in- 
tegrity. Even the variations themselves have the highest 
value in this respect. Thus, for instance, when we find that 
soon after the middle of the second century divergent read- 
ings of a striking kind occur in St. John's Gospel, as, for in- 
stance, fiovoyevriQ Qeog and 6 fiovoyevrig vloq (i., 18), we are led to 
the conclusion that the text has already a history, and that 
the Gospel, therefore, can not have been very recent. This 
evidential value of textual criticism, moreover, shows itself 



! 



FALSE READINGS. 37 

in other ways. I will select one instance, which has always 
appeared to me very instructive, as illustrating the results of 
this study — apparently so revolutionary in its methods, and 
yet really so conservative in its ends. 

The Epistle to the Ephesians, after having been received 
by churches and individuals alike (so far as we know), with- 
out a single exception, from the earliest times, as the unques- 
tioned work of the apostle whose name it bears, has been 
challenged in our own generation. ISTow there is one for- 
midable argument, and one only, against its genuineness. It 
is urged with irresistible force that St. Paul could not have 
written in this strain to a Church in which he had resided 
for some three years, and with which he lived on the closest 
and most affectionate terms. So far as regards reference to 
persons or incidents, this is quite the most colorless of all St. 
Paul's Epistles; whereas we should expect to find it more 
full and definite in its allusions than any other, except per- 
haps the letters to Corinth. To this objection no satisfactory 
answer can be given without the aid of textual criticism. 
But from textual criticism we learn that an intelligent and 
well-informed, though heretical writer of the second century, 
called it an Epistle to the Laodiceans; that in the opening 
verse the words " in Ephesus" are wanting in the two oldest 
extant Greek MSS. ; that the most learned of the Greek fa- 
thers in the middle of the third century — himself a textual 
critic — had not the words in his copy or copies ; and that 
another learned Greek father in the middle of the fourth 
century declares them to be absent from the oldest manu- 
scripts — not to mention other subsidiary notices tending in 
the same direction. Putting these facts together, we get a 
complete answer to the objection. The epistle is found to 
be a circular letter, addressed probably to the churches of 
Proconsular Asia, of which Ephesus was one and Laodicea 
another. From Ephesus, as the metropolis, it derived its 
usual title, because the largest number of copies in circula- 
tion would be derived from the autograph sent thither ; but 



38 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

here and there a copy was extant in early times addressed to 
some other Church (as Laodicea, for instance) ; and still more 
commonly copies existed taken from some MS. in which the 
blank for the name of the Church had not been filled up. 
This circular character of the letter fully explains the ab- 
sence of personal or historical allusions. Thus textual criti- 
cism in this instance removes our difficulty ; but its services 
do not end here. It furnishes a body of circumstantial evi- 
dence which, I venture to think, must ultimately carry irre- 
sistible conviction as to the authorship of the letter, though 
for the present some are found to hesitate. For these facts 
supplied by textual criticism connect themselves with the 
mention of the letter which the Colossians are charged to 
get from Laodicea (Col. iv.,16), and this mention again com- 
bines with the strong resemblances of matter and diction, so 
as to bind these two epistles inseparably together, while, 
again, the Epistle to the Colossians is linked not less indis- 
solubly with the letter to Philemon by the references to per- 
son, and place, and circumstance. Thus the three epistles 
form a compact whole, to resist the assaults of adverse criti- 
cism. A striking amount of undesigned coincidence is gath- 
ered together from the most diverse quarters, converging, 
unmistakably to one result. And the point to be observed 
is, that many of these coincident elements are not found in 
the epistles themselves, but in the external history of the 
text, a circumstance which gives them a far higher evidential 
value. For, even if it were possible to imagine a forger in 
an uncritical age at once able to devise a series of artifices so 
subtle and so complex as on the supposition of the spurious- 
ness of one or all of these letters we are obliged to assume, 
and willing to defeat his own purpose by tangling a skein 
which it would require the critical education of the nineteenth 
century to unravel, yet there would remain the. still greater 
improbability that a man in such a position could have exer- 
cised an effective control over external circumstances — the 
diffusion and the subsequent history of his forgeries — such as 
this hypothesis would suppose. 



FALSE READINGS. 39 

This instance will illustrate my meaning when I alluded to 
the conservative action of textual criticism, for such I con- 
ceive to be its general tendency. But, in fact, the considera- 
tion of consequences ought not to weigh with us in a matter 
where duty is so obvious. It must be our single aim to place 
the Bible in its integrity before the people of Christ ; and, so 
long as we sincerely follow the truth, we can afford to leave 
the consequences in God's hands ; and I can not too strongly 
urge the truism (for truism it is) that the higher value we set 
on the Bible as being or as containing the Word of God, the 
greater (if we are faithful to our trust) will be our care to 
ascertain the exact expressions of the original by the aid of 
all the critical resources at our command. We have seen 
that St. Jerome's courage was chiefly tried in the substitution 
of a purer text, and that his fidelity herein has been recog- 
nized as his greatest claim to the gratitude of after ages. 
The work which our new revisers will be required to execute 
is far less revolutionary than his. Where his task required 
him to substitute a wholly new text in the Old Testament, 
they will only be required to cancel or to change a word or 
expression, or, in rare cases, a verse, here and there in the 
"New. Where he was faithful in great things, we may trust 
that they will not be faithless in small. 

The question, therefore, is not one of policy, but of truth. 
Yet still it is well to face the probable results, because ap- 
prehension is especially alive on this point, and because only 
by boldly confronting the spectres of a vague alarm can we 
hope to lay them. 

Let us, then, first of all, set it down as an unmixed gain 
that we shall rid ourselves of an alliance which is a constant 
source of weakness and perplexity to us. No more serious 
damage can be done to a true cause than by summoning in 
its defense a witness who is justly suspected or manifestly 
perjured. Yet this is exactly the attitude which the verse re- 
lating to the heavenly witnesses (l John v., 7) bears towards 
the great doctrine which it proclaims, so long as it retains a 



40 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

place in the Bible which we put into the hands of the people. 
Shortly after the question of revision was first mooted, an 
article on the subject appeared in a popular daily paper, in 
which the writer, taking occasion to refer to this verse, com- 
mitted himself to two statements respecting it : first, that 
the passage in question had done much towards promoting 
the belief in the doctrine which it puts forward ; and, second- 
ly, that the interpolator knew well what he was about, and 
used very efficient means to gain his end. Now both these 
statements were evidently made in good faith by the writer, 
and would, I suppose, be accepted as true by a very large 
number of his readers. But those who have given any spe- 
cial attention to the subject know that neither will bear ex- 
amination. The first contradicts the plain facts of history; 
the second militates against the most probable inferences of 
criticism. As regards the first point, it seems unquestionable 
that the doctrine was formally defined and firmly established 
some time before the interpolation appeared. A study of 
history shows that the Church arrived at the catholic state- 
ment of the doctrine of the Trinity partly because it was in- 
dicated in other passages of the New Testament (e. g., Matt, 
xxviii., 19; 2 Cor. xiii.,14), and partly because it was the only 
statement which, recognizing the fact of the Incarnation of 
the Divine Word, was found at once to satisfy the instincts 
of a devout belief and the requirements of a true philosophy ; 
and that the text in question had not, and could not have, 
any thing to do with its establishment. Indeed, the very 
fact that it is nowhere quoted by the great controversial 
writers of the fourth and fifth centuries has been truly re- 
garded as the strongest evidence against its genuineness. 
And in more recent times, when the doctrine began to be 
challenged, the text was challenged also; so that at this stage 
the doctrine did not gain, but lose, by the advocacy of a wit- 
ness whose questionable character threw discredit upon it. 
Again, the second statement equally breaks down when in- 
vestigated. Textual criticism shows that the clause contain- 



FALSE READINGS. 



41 



ing the three heavenly witnesses was not, in the first instance, 
a deliberate forgery, but a comparatively innocent gloss, 
which put a directly theological interpretation on the three 
genuine witnesses of St. John — the spirit, and the water, and 
the blood — a gloss which is given substantially by St. Au- 
gustine, and was indicated before by Origen and Cyprian, 
and which first thrust itself into the text in some Latin MSS., 
where it betrays its origin not only by its varieties of form, 
but also by the fact that it occurs sometimes before and 
sometimes after the mention of the three genuine witnesses 
which it was intended to explain. Thus both these state- 
ments alike break down, and we see no ground for placing 
this memorable verse in the same category Avith such fictions 
as the False Decretals, whether we regard its origin or its 
results ; for, unlike them, it was not a deliberate forgery, 
and, unlike them also, it did not create a dogma. I only 
quote this criticism to show how much prejudice may be 
raised against the truth by the retention of interpolations 
like this ; nor can we hold ourselves free from blame if such 
statements are made and accepted so long as we take no 
steps to eject from our Bibles an intrusive passage against 
which external and internal evidence alike have pronounced 
a decisive verdict. In this instance our later English Bibles 
have retrograded from the more truthful position of the ear- 
lier. In Tyndale's, Coverdale's, and the Great Bibles, the 
spurious words are placed in brackets and printed in a differ- 
ent type, and thus attention is directed to their suspicious 
character. In Luther's German Translation (in its original 
form), as also in the Zurich Latin Bible of 1543, they were 
omitted. In the Geneva Testament first, so far as I am aware, 
and in the Bishops' Bible after it, the example was set, which 
the translators of our Authorized Version unhappily followed, 
of dispensing with these marks of doubtful genuineness, and 
printing the passage uniformly with the context. 

In other doctrinal passages where important various read- 
ings occur, the solution will not be so simple ; but in doubt- 



42 LIGHTFOOT OK A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

ful cases the margin may usefully be employed. Altogether, 
the instances in which doctrine is directly or indirectly in- 
volved are very few ; and, though individual texts might be 
altered, the balance of doctrinal statement would probably 
not be disturbed by the total result, a change in one direction 
being compensated by a change in the other. Thus, for in- 
stance, if the reading " God was manifest in the flesh" should 
have to give place to " Who was manifest in the flesh" in 1 
Tim. iii., 16, and retire to the margin, yet, on the other hand, 
the " Only-begotten God" would seem to have equal or supe- 
rior claims to "the Only-begotten Son" in John i., 18, and 
must either supersede it, or claim a place side by side with it. 

The passages which touch Christian sentiment, or histo- 
ry, or morals, and which are affected by textual differences, 
though less rare than the former, are still very few. Of these, 
the pericope of the woman taken in adultery holds the first 
place in importance. In this case a deference to the most 
ancient authorities, as well as a consideration of internal evi- 
dence, might seem to involve immediate loss. The best solu- 
tion would probably be to place the passage in brackets, for 
the purpose of showing, not, indeed, that it contains an un- 
true narrative (for, whencesoever it comes, it seems to bear 
on its face the highest credentials of authentic history), but 
that evidence external and internal is against its being re- 
garded as an integral portion of the original Gospel of St. 
John. The close of St. Mark's Gospel should possibly be 
treated in the same way. If I might venture a conjecture, I 
should say that both the one and the other were due to that 
knot of early disciples who gathered about St. John in Asia 
Minor, and must have preserved more than one true tradition 
of the Lord's life and of the earliest days of the Church, of 
which some, at least, had themselves been eye-witnesses.* 

Again, in St. Luke's Gospel, it might be right to take ac- 

* The account of the woman taken in adultery is known to have been re- 
lated by Papias, a disciple of this school, early in the second century, who 
also speaks of the Gospel of St. Mark. Euseb. ,H.E., iii. , 39. 



FALSE READINGS. 43 

count of certain remarkable omissions in some texts, and 
probably in these cases a marginal note would be the best 
solution. Such, for instance, are the words addressed to 
James and Luke, ix., 55, "Ye know not of what spirit ye are;" 
or the agony in the garden, xxii., 43, 44 ; or the solemn words 
on the cross, xxiii., 34. It seems impossible to believe that 
these incidents are other than authentic ; and as the text of 
St. Luke's Gospel is perhaps exceptional in this respect (for 
the omissions in St. John's Gospel are of a different kind), 
the solution will suggest itself that the evangelist himself 
may have issued two separate editions. This conjecture will 
be confirmed by observing that in the second treatise of St. 
Luke similar traces of two editions are seen where the pas- 
sages omitted in many texts, though not important in them- 
selves (e.(7.,xxviii.,16,29),bear equal evidence of authenticity, 
and are entirely free from suspicion on the ground that they 
were inserted to serve any purpose, devotional or doctrinal. 
On the other hand, some passages, where the external tes- 
timony is equivocal or adverse, are open to suspicion, because 
the origin of, or the motive for, the insertions or alterations 
lies on the surface. Thus, in St. Luke, ii., 33, " his father" is 
altered into "Joseph;" and ten verses later, "Joseph and his 
mother" is substituted for " his parents," evidently because 
the transcriber was alarmed lest the doctrine of the Incarna- 
tion might be imperiled by such language ; an alarm not 
entertained by the evangelist himself, whose own narrative 
directly precluded any false inference, and who therefore 
could use the popular language without fear of misapprehen- 
sion. And again, the mention of "fasting" in connection 
with praying in not less than four passages (Matt, xvii., 21 ; 
Mark ix., 29 ; Acts x., 30 ; 1 Cor. vii., 5), in all of which it is 
rejected by one or more of the best editors, shows an ascetic 
bias ; though, indeed, there is ample sanction elsewhere in 
the New Testament for the practice which it was thus sought 
to enforce more strongly. Again, allowance must be made 
for the influence of liturgical usage in such passages as the 



44 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

doxology to the Lord's Prayer, Matt, vi., 13 ; and a similar ex- 
planation may. be given of the insertion of the eunuch's con- 
fession of faith preparatory to baptism, Acts viii.,37. And, 
again, when a historical difficulty is avoided by a various 
reading, this should be taken into account, as in Mark i.,1, 
where, indeed, the substitution of h rw 'Ho-a'/'ct ™ 7rpo([)rjTr] for 
the common reading h roig Trpo^Tatq would introduce a diffi- 
culty the same in kind, but less in magnitude, than already 
exists in the received text of Matt, xxvii., 9. Or, lastly, the 
desire to bring out the presence of a supernatural agency 
may have had its influence in procuring the insertion of the 
w r ords describing the descent of the angel in John v., 3, 4. 
On the other hand, in some cases these considerations of in- 
ternal probability favor the existing text, where external evi- 
dence taken alone might lead to a different result, as in 1 
Cor. xv., 51, where the received reading ttclvteq oh Koifirjdrjao- 
fieda, ttclvtzq he aXXay^o-o^Oa, is so recommended against TtavreQ 
KOL/j.rjdrjffOfieda^ ob. tvclvteq <)£ aXXayrjaofieda. 

I believe that I have not only indicated (so far as my space 
allows) the really important classes of various readings, but 
given the most prominent illustrations in each instance. The 
whole number of such readings, indeed, is small, and only a 
very few remain after the examples already brought forward. 
On the other hand, variations of a subordinate kind are more 
numerous. These occur more frequently in the Gospel than 
elsewhere, arising out of the attempt to supplement the evan- 
gelical narrative by the insertion of a word or a clause from 
another, or to bring the one into literal conformity with the 
other by substitution or correction ; but no considerations of 
moment are involved in the rectification of such passages. It 
is very rarely indeed that a various reading of this class rises 
to the interest of Matt, xix., 17, H fie tpiorag Kept rov ayaOov 
(compared with Mark x.,18; Luke xviii.,19); and, for the 
most part, they are wholly unimportant as regards any doc- 
trinal or practical bearing. 

The same motive which operates so powerfully in the Gos- 



FALSE READINGS. 



45 



pels will also influence, though in a far less degree, the text 
of those epistles which are closely allied to each other, as, for 
instance, the Romans and Galatians, or the Ephesians and 
Colossians, and will be felt, moreover, in isolated j^arallel pas- 
sages elsewhere ; but, for the most part, the corruptions in 
the epistles are due to the carelessness of scribes, or to their 
officiousness exercised on the grammar or the style. The 
restoration of the best supported reading is in almost every 
instance a gain, either as establishing a more satisfactory 
connection of sentences, or as substituting a more forcible 
expression for a less forcible (e. g^TrapaJDoXivoantvoQ for irapa- 
ijovXevarafievoc, Phil, ii., 30), or in other ways giving point to 
the expression, and bringing out a better and clearer sense 
(e.<7.,Rom. iv., 19, icaTEVorjaev to eclvtov <rw/xa . . . tig ce t>]v enay- 
yeXlav tov Qeov ov ciEKptdt] for ov KarevorjaEV, K.r.X., where the 
point is that Abraham did fully recognize his own condition, 
and notwithstanding was not staggered ; or 2 Cor. i., 20, h 
avTip -b vat, Zlo kcu hi avrov to o/i>}>', *:.r.X., where rat denotes the 
fulfillment of the promise on the part of God, and afiqv the 
recognition and thanksgiving on the part of the Church, a 
distinction which is obliterated by the received reading kv 
avrio to vcu kgli kv avTio to afi^v\ or 2 Cor. xii., 1, KavyavQai Cf7, ov 
crvfityepov fidr, eXevcro/jicu ce, k.t.X., where the common text, kclv- 
yaaQai £;) ov avfitytpei p,oi, iXevao/j.ai yap, k.t.X., is feeble in com- 
parison). It is this very fact, that reading of the older au- 
thorities almost always exhibits some improvement in the 
sense (even though the change may be unimportant in itself), 
which gives us the strongest assurance of their trustworthi- 
ness as against the superior numbers of the more recent copies. 
Altogether it may be safely affirmed that the permanent 
value of the new revision will depend in a great degree on 
the courage and fidelity with which it deals with questions 
of readings. If the signs of the times may be trusted, the 
course which is most truthful will also be most politic. To 
be conservative, it will be necessary to be adequate, for no 
revision which fails to deal fairly with these textual problems 



46 LIGHTFOOT ON A FMESH REVISION OF TEE N. TEST. 

can be lasting. Here also the example of St. Jerome is full 
of encouragement. 

§2. 

From errors in the Greek text which our translators used, 
we may pass on to faults of actual translation. And here I 
will commence with one class which is not unimportant in 
itself, and which claims to be considered first, because the 
translators have dwelt at some length on the matter, and at- 
tempted to justify their mode of proceeding. I refer to the 
various renderings of the same word or words, by which arti- 
ficial distinctions are introduced in the translation which have 
no place in the original. This is perhaps the only point in 
which they proceed deliberately on a wrong principle. " We 
have not tied ourselves," they say in the Preface, "to a uni- 
formity of phrasing or to an identity of words." They plead 
that such a course would savor " more of curiosity than wis- 
dom," and they allege the quaint reason that they might " be 
charged (by scoffers) with some unequal dealing towards a 
great number of English words" if they adopted one to the 
exclusion of another, as a rendering of the same Greek equiv- 
alent. Now, if they had restricted themselves within proper 
limits in the use of this liberty, no fault could have been 
found with this vindication ; but when the translation of the 
same word is capriciously varied in the same paragraph, and 
even in the same verse, a false effect is inevitably produced, 
and the connection will in some cases be severed, or the read- 
er more or less seriously misled in other ways. To what ex- 
tent they have thus attempted to improve upon the original 
by introducing variety, the following examples, though they 
might be multiplied many times, will suffice to show. 

Why, for instance, should we read in Matthew xviii., 33, 
" Shouldest not thou also have had compassion (eXefjaai) on 
thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity {ifkir}oa) on thee;" or in 
xx., 20," Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children 
(vliov) with her sons (vlwr) ;" or in xxv., 32, "He shall separate 



ARTIFICIAL DISTIXCTIOXS CREATED. 47 

(a(popie~t) them one from another, as a shepherd divideth (acpopl- 
£ei) his sheep from the goats ?" Why, in St. John xvi., 1, 4, 6, 
should raura XeXaXrjKa vfuv be rendered in three different ways 
in the same paragraph : " These things have I spoken unto 
you," " These things have I told you," " I have said these 
things unto you ;" or St. Thomas be made to say, "Put my 
finger," and "Thrust my hand," in the same verse, though 
the same Greek word /3aXw stands for both (xx., 25) ? Why 
again, in the Acts (xxvi., 24, 25), should Festus cry, "Paul, 
thou art beside thyself" (ftaivrj, TlavXe), and St. Paul reply, "I 
am not mad, most noble Festus" (ob fiaivofim, Kpariffrt $>7otc) ? 
Why, in the Epistle to the Romans (x., 15), should ol -n-odeg tu>v 
evayyiki^Ofiivojv e\pi]vr\v, twv EvayyeXiCo}XEvii)v ra ciyadd be trans- 
lated " the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace, and 
bring glad tidings of good things ?" Why, in the same epis- 
tle (xv., 4, 5), should we read," That we through patience and 
comfort of the Scriptures (£ta rijg viro/jioyfjg ical rrjg 7rapaKXj]ffEiog 
tCjv ypct(pu>v) should have hope," and in the next sentence, 
"Now the God of patience and consolation (6 Qedg -ijg v-KOfio- 
vijg kciI rfjg 7rapa^\y)creu)g) grant you to be like minded," though 
the words are identical in the two clauses, and the repetition 
is obviously intended by St. Paul ? And why again, in the 
salutations at the end of this epistle, as also of others, should 
atnraaaaQe be translated now " salute" and now " greet," the 
two renderings being interchanged capriciously and without 
any law ? Again, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, iii., 
17, the same word (pdelpeiu is differently translated, "If any 
man defile (tyQeipei) the temple of God, him shall God destroy 
(<p0f|O£7)," though the force of the passage depends on the iden- 
tity of the sin and the punishment. And in a later passage 
(x., 16 seq.), kolvuvoX tov Qvaiaarripiov is translated "partakers 
of the altar," and two verses below, Koivwvoi t&v caifioviwv, 
"have fellowship with devils," while (to complete the confu- 
sion) in a preceding and a succeeding verse the rendering "be 
partakers" is assigned to percxciK, and in the same paragraph 
Kotvuvia rod aifia-og,Tov aw^aTog, is translated " communion of 

G 



48 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

the blood, of the body." The exigencies of the English might 
demand some slight variation of rendering here, but this ut- 
ter confusion is certainly not required ; and yet this passage 
is only a sample of what occurs in numberless other places. 
Again, in the same epistle (xii., 4 seq.), it is not easy to see 
why ^taipeaeiQ yapLafiar^i', ciaLpecreig ciaKOviiov, diaipiasig evepyrj/jLa- 
tuv, are translated respectively "diversities of gifts," "differ- 
ences of administration," "diversities of operations," while in 
the same passage evepyrj/jara is rendered first operations and 
then working. Each time I read the marvelous episode on 
charity in the xiiith chapter, I feel with increased force the 
inimitable delicacy, and beauty, and sublimity of the render- 
ing, till I begin to doubt whether the English language is not 
a better vehicle than even the Greek for so lofty a theme ; 
yet even here I find some blemishes of this kind. Thus, in 
the 8th verse, the same English word " fail" is given as a ren- 
dering for both iKTTLTr-ea' and Karapyewdai, while conversely the 
same Greek word Karapysi^Qai is translated first by fail and 
then by vanish aioay, and two verses afterward, where it oc- 
curs again, by a third expression, be done away. This word 
Karapytiv is translated with the same latitude later on also 
(xv., 24, 26), "When he shall have put down (tcaTapyforj) all 
rule, and all authority, and power," and immediately after- 
ward, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed (Ka-apyel-ai) 
is death." Let me add another instance from this epistle, for 
it is perhaps the most characteristic of all. In xv., 27,28, 
the word viroraacrziv occurs six times in the same sense within 
two verses ; in the first three places it is rendered pat under, 
in the fourth be subdued, in the fifth be subject, while in the 
last place the translators return again to their first rendering 
put under. Nay, even the simple word Xoyla, when it occurs 
in successive verses (xvi.,1, 2), has a different rendering, first 
" collection" and then " gathering." 

The Second Epistle to the Corinthians is especially remark- 
able for the recurrence, through whole sentences or para- 
graphs, of the same word or words, which thus strike the 



ARTIFICIAL DISTINCTIONS CREATED. 49 

key-note to the passage. This fact is systematically disre- 
garded by our translators, who, impressed with the desire of 
producing what they seem to have regarded as an agreeable 
variety, failed to see that in such cases monotony is force. 
Thus, in the first chapter, the words TrapaKaXeiv, TrapaKXrime, 
and tiXifizir, OXixpic, occur again and again. In the rendering 
of the first our translators are divided between comfort and 
consolation, and of the second between tribulation, trouble, 
and affliction. Again, in the opening of the second chapter, 
where the tone is given to the paragraph by the frequent 
repetition of Xv-mr), Xwreip, we have three distinct renderings, 
heaviness, sorrow, grief . Again, in the third chapter, several 
instances of this fault occur. In the first verse this passion 
for variety is curiously illustrated. They render (rvarari^uiv 

l7n(TT0\u)V TTpOQ VflCLQ ?j I't, VfJ.U/1' (TVOTO.TIKCjV by " ' Epistles of COm- 

mendation to you or letters of commendation from you," where 
even in supplying a word (which were better left out alto- 
gether) they make a change, though in the original the ad- 
jectives refer to the same substantive. In this same chapter, 
again, they hover between sufficient and able as a rendering 
of 'ucavog, kavovv, kavorrjQ (ver. 5, 6), while later on they inter- 
change abolish and done away for Karapyeladat (ver. 7,13,14), 
and fail to preserve the connection of cW^aXv/i^eYw (ver. 18) 
with fcuXv/j/jia (ver. 13 seq.) and avaKaXv-K-onEvoi' (ver. 14) and 
of KEKaXv/jjueroy (iv., 3) with all three. Again, in the fifth chap- 
ter, hcr)niiv is rendered in the same context to be at home and 
to be present (ver. 6, 8, 9), where the former rendering, more- 
over, in ver. 6, obscures the direct opposition to Ucrj/uelv, this 
last word being rendered throughout to be absent; and a little 
later (ver. 10), tovq irarrag f]/J.ag (paj'epwdijvcti, k.t.X., is translated 
"We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ," 
where, independently of the fatal objection that appear gives 
a wrong sense (for the context lays stress on the manifesta- 
tion of men's true characters at the great day), this render- 
ing is still further faulty, as severing the connection with 
what follows immediately (ver. 1.1), "We are made manifest 



50 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

(7T£0avfpw/i£0a) unto God, and I trust also are made manifest 
(Te^ayepaxTdai) in your consciences." Again, in vii., 7, conso- 
lation and comfort are once more interchanged for napaKaXElv, 
TrapdicXrjffie ; in viii., 10, 11, 12, to OeXeiv is translated to be for- 
ward and to will, and 7rpodvjdia readiness and a willing mind 
in successive verses; in ix., 2, 3, 4, 5, ready and prepared are 
both employed in rendering TtapEOKEvaarai, TrapEGKEvaajiEvoi, cnra- 
paGKEvcKTTovs, while conversely the single expression "be ready" 
is made to represent both TrapEGKEvaa-ai and hoi^v elvcli ; in 
x., 13, 15,16, kcuw, after being twice translated rule, is varied 
in the third passage by line ; in xi.,16, 17, 18, the rendering 
of Kavxavdai, KavxnviQ, is diversified by boast and glory ; and 
in xii., 2, 3,ouk oI3a, 6 Geo? o\Iev, is twice translated "I can not 
tell, God knoweth" w T hile elsewhere in these same verses ol^a 
is rendered " I knew," and oi//c oT£a, " I can not tell." This re- 
pugnance to repeating the same word for olSa has a parallel 
in John xvi., 30, where vvv oilapEv on oldag ndvTa is given, 
"Now are we sure that thou knowest all things." 

Nor is there any improvement in the later books, as the fol- 
lowing instances, taken almost at random from a very large 
number which might have been adduced, will show : Phil, ii., 
13," It is God which icorketh (kvEpyibv) in you both to will and 
to do {LvEpyElv) ;" Phil, iii., 3 sq., " And have no confidence (oh 
TTETroiQoTEg) in the flesh ; Though I might also have confidence 
(exw TTETroiQricnv) in the flesh; If any other man thinketh that 
hs hath whereof he might trust (ZokeL tcettolQevch) in the flesh, I 
more . . . as touching the law (Kara vojiov), a Pharisee; con- 
cerning zeal (kuto. ZtjXoq), persecuting the Church ; touching 
the righteousness (kuto. ZiKaioavv^) which is in the law, blame- 
less;" 1 Thess. ii.,4, "As we were allowed (hloKi^daiiEQa) of 
God . . . not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth (coKijid- 
ZovTi) our hearts ;" 2 Thess. i., 6, "To recompense tribulation to 
them that trouble you" (dvTa-Kohovvat toiq QXlfiovcriv vfiaq OXixpir) ; 

Heb. viii., 13," He hath made the first old (TZETtaXaioiKEv rr)v 7rpw- 
ty]v) ; now that w r hich decay eth (TraXaiovfiEvov) and waxeth old 
(yrjpdfTKov) is ready to vanish away;" James ii., 2, 3, "If there 



ARTIFICIAL DISTINCTIONS CREATED. 



51 



come (eltriXdri) unto your assembly a man with a gold ring in 
goodly apparel {iv tadij-i Xapirpq), and there come in (eiaiXdr]) 
also a poor man in vile raiment (e^dijri), and ye have respect 
to him that weareth the gay clothing (rrjv ladr/ru rt)y Xafi-n-pav)^ 
etc. ;" 2 Pet. ii., 1,3," Who privily shall bring in damnable her- 
esies (aipiaeig a7ru)Xsiag) . . . and bring on themselves swift 
destruction (a-xioXuav) . . . and their damnation (tnrwXeia) 
slumbereth not;" 1 John v., 9, 10, "This is the witness (fiaprv- 
pia) of God which he hath testified (/ie/j.apTvpr)Kev) of his Son 
... He belie veth not the record {fxaprvpiav) that God gave 
(/jiEfxapTvpr)K(v) of his Son ;" Rev. i., 15, "His voice (tyuvij) as the 
sound ((pojm'i) of many waters;" ih\, 17, "I am rich (ttXovctwc) 
and increased in goods (xE7rXovTr}Ka) ;" xvii., C, 7," And when I 
saw her, I wondered (edavfiaaa) with great admiration (dav/ia) ; 
and the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel 
(IdavfMKTag) :" xviii., 2, " And the hold ((pvXaKt)) of every foul 
spirit, and a cage (0v\ao/) of every unclean and hateful bird." 
In the instances hitherto given the variation of rendering 
is comparatively unimportant, but for this very reason they 
serve well to illustrate the wrong principle on which our trans- 
lators proceeded. In such cases, no more serious consequences 
may result than a loss of point and force ; but elsewhere the 
injury done to the understanding of the passage is graver. 
Thus, when the English reader finds in St. Matthew xxv.,46, 
"These shall go away into everlasting (alwvioy) punishment, 
but the righteous into life eternal (alwviov)" he is led to spec- 
ulate on the difference of meaning between " everlasting" and 
" eternal," if he happens to have any slight acquaintance with 
modern controversy, and he will most probably be led to a 
wrong conclusion by observing different epithets used, more 
especially as the antithesis of the clauses helps to emphasize 
the difference. Or take instances where the result will not 
be misunderstanding, but non-understanding. Thus, in the 
apocalyptic passage 2 Thess. ii., 6, 7," And now ye know what 
withholdeth (to kcltexuv) • . • only he who now letteth (6 Ka-i- 
X<ov iipri) will let," the same word should certainly have been 



52 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

repeated, that the identity of the thing signified might be 
clear; and in the doctrinal statement, Col. ii., 9, 10, "In him 
dwelleth all the fullness (to 7rX^jow/^a) of the Godhead bodily, 
and ye are complete (7re7r\r)po)jjiivoi) in him," it was still more 
necessary to preserve the connection by a similar rendering, 
for the main idea of the second clause is the communication 
of the 7r\iipojf.ia which resides in Christ to the believers (comp. 
Ephes. i., 23). Again, the word OpuvoQ in the Revelation is 
translated throne when it refers to our Lord, but seat when it 
refers to the faithful (iv., 4 ; xi., 16*) or when it refers to Sa- 
tan (ii., 13 ; xvi., 10). Now by this variation, as Archbishop 
Trench has pointed out,f two great ideas which run through 
this Book, and indeed, we may say, through the whole of the 
New Testament, are obliterated ; the one, that the true serv- 
ants of Christ are crowned with him and share his sovereign- 
ty; the other, that the antagonism of the Prince of Darkness 
to the Prince of Light develops itself in " the hellish parody 
of the heavenly kingdom." And in other passages, again, the 
connection between different parts of the same discourse or 
the same narrative is severed. Thus, in St. Luke xix., 13, 15, 
the nobleman, going into a far country, gives charge to his 
servants TrpayjiarevaaaQe kv J ep^ofiai, and when he re- 
turns he summons them iva yvip [or yvcu] rig ri htS7rpayjjiaTEv- 
(ravro. If the former had been translated, "Trade ye till I 
come," it would then have corresponded to the nobleman's 
subsequent demand of them to " know how much each man 
had gained by trading." But the rendering of our transla- 
tors," Occupy till I come," besides involving a somewhat un- 
intelligible archaism, disconnects the two, and the first indi- 
cation which the English reader eets that the servants were 
expected to employ the money in trade is when the master at 
length comes to reckon with them. Another instance, where 
the connection is not, indeed, wholly broken (for the context 
will not suffer this), but greatly impaired, is Matt, v., 15, 16, 

* Eev. iv., 4, "And round the throne (Opovov) were four-and-twenty seats 
(OpovoL).'" t On the Authorized Version, p. 80 seq. 



ARTIFICIAL DISTINCTIONS CREATED. 53 

\ufJ7rei irdaiv roig kv rr\ ohla' obriog Xa^ixparoj to (pojg bfiwv efiirpoadev 
ribv avdfxoTrioV) which should run, "It shineth upon all that arc 
in the house : Even so let your light shine before men, etc." 
But in our translation, "It giveth light unto all that are in the 
house : Let your light so shine before men that they may see 
your good works, etc.," the two sentences are detached from 
each other by the double error of rendering Xajwrec, Xa/iJ/a-w by 
different words, and of misunderstanding ovrtag. I say " misun- 
derstanding," because the alternative that " so" is a mere am- 
biguity of expression seems to be precluded by the fact that 
in our Communion Service the words "Let your light so shine 
before men, etc.," detached from their context, are chosen as 
the initial sentence at the Offertory, where the correct mean- 
ing, " in like manner," could not stand. 

This love of variety might be still further illustrated by 
their treatment of the component parts of words. Thus there 
is no reason why iroXv^ip^g kcu TroXvrpoTrojg in Heb. i., 1, should 
be translated "At sundry times and in divers manners," even 
though for want of a better word we should allow the very 
inadequate rendering times to pass muster, where the original 
points to the divers parts of one great comprehensive scheme. 
And again, in Mark xii., 89 (comp. Matt, xxiii.,6), it is equally 
difficult to see why irpuroxadehpiag kv raig avvayioyaig xal Trpio- 
-oxXiaiag kv rolg SeiTrvoig should be rendered " the chief seats in 
the synagogues and the uppermost rooms at feasts." On the 
archaic rendering "room" for the second element in -pu-oKXi- 
<ria I shall have something to say hereafter. 

These instances which have been given will suffice. But, 
in fact, examples illustrating this misconception of a transla- 
tor's duty are sown broadcast over our New Testament, so 
that there is scarcely a page without one or more. It is due 
to our translators, however, to say, that in many cases which 
I have examined they only perpetuated and did not intro- 
duce the error, which may often be traced to Tyndale himself, 
from whom our version is ultimately derived ; and in some in- 
stances his variations are even greater than theirs. Thus, in 



54 ' LIGHTFOOT OX A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

a passage already quoted, 1 Cor. xii., 4 seq.,he has three dif- 
ferent renderings of haipiaeiq in the three successive clauses 
where they have only two : " Ther are diversities of gyftes 
verely, yet but one sprete, and ther are differences of admin- 
istration and yet but one lorde, and ther are divers maners 
of operacions and yet but one God ;" and in Rom. xvi., his in- 
terchanges of " salute" and " greet" are still more frequent 
than theirs. Of all the English versions the Rhemish alone 
has paid attention to this point, and so far compares advan- 
tageously with the rest, to which in most other respects it is 
confessedly inferior. And I suppose that the words of our 
Translators' Preface, in which they attempt to justify their 
course, must refer indirectly to this Roman Catholic Version, 
more especially as I find that its Latinisms are censured in 
the same paragraph. If so, it is to be regretted that preju- 
dice should have blinded them to a consideration of some 
importance. 

But not only is it necessary to preserve the same word in 
the same context and in the same book; equal care should 
be taken to secure uniformity where it occurs in the same 
connection in. different passages and different books. Thus, 
where quotations are given once or more from the Old Testa- 
ment in the New, the rendering should exhibit (as far as pos- 
sible) the exact coincidence with or divergence from the 
original and one another in the language. Again, when the 
same discourses or the same incidents are recorded by differ- 
ent evangelists, it is especially important to reproduce the 
features of the original, neither obliterating nor creating dif- 
ferences. Again, in parallel passages in allied epistles, as, for 
instance, those of St. Paul to the Romans and Galatians, or to 
the Colossians and Ephesians, or the Epistle of St. Jude and 
the Second Epistle of St. Peter, the exact amount of resem- 
blance should be reproduced, because questions of date and 
authenticity are affected thereby. Again, in the writings 
which claim the same authorship, as, for instance, the Gospel 
and Epistles and the Apocalypse of St. John, the similarity 



ARTIFICIAL DISTINCTIONS CREATED. 



55 



of diction should be preserved. Though this will be a some- 
what laborious task, let us hope that our new revisers will 
exercise constant vigilance in this matter. As the authors 
of our Received Version allowed themselves so much license 
in the same context, it is no surprise that they did not pay 
any attention to these coincidences of language which occur 
in separate parts of the New Testament, and which did not, 
therefore, force themselves on their notice. 

Of their mode of dealing with quotations from the Old Tes- 
tament, one or two instances will suffice by way of illustra- 
tion. 

Deut. xxxii., 35 is twice quoted in exactly the same words. 
In our English Version it appears in these two forms : 

Rom. xii. ,19. Heb. x. , 3 0. 

Vengeance is mine: I will Vengeance belongeth unto 
repay, saith the Lord. me, I will recompense, saith 

the Lord. 

Again, the same words, Gen. xv., 6 (LXX.), eXoylrrdrj avru> 
siq SiKaio(Tuvr)i^ are given with these variations: Rom. iv., 3, 
"It was counted unto him for righteousness;" Rom. iv.,22, "It 
was imputed unto him for righteousness ;" Gal. iii., 6, " It was 
accounted to him for righteousness" (with a marginal note, 
" or imputed") ; James ii., 23, " It was imputed to him for 
righteousness;" while in an indirect reference to it, Rom. iv., 
9 (in the immediate context of two of these divergent render- 
ings), a still further variation is introduced: "We say that 
faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness." 

Again, koXv^el TvXijdog afiap-iiov (from Prov. x., 12) is trans- 
lated in James v., 20, " shall hide a multitude of sins," and in 
1 Pet. iv., 8, "shall cover the multitude of sins" (with a mar- 
ginal reading " will" for " shall"). 

The variation in the last instance which I shall give is still 
more astonishing, because the two quotations of the same 
passage (Psa. xcv., 11) occur in the same context. 



5Q LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 



Heb.iii.,11. Heb. iv., 3. 

So I sware in ray wrath, As I have sworn in my 

They shall not enter into my wrath, If they shall enter into 

rest. my rest. 

Here there is absolutely no difference in the Greek of the 
two passages; and, as the argument is continuous, no justifi- 
cation of the various renderings can be imagined. 

On the parallel narratives of the different evangelists it 
will not be necessary to dwell, because this part of the sub- 
ject has been discussed at some length elsewhere.* I will 
content myself with three examples. The first, which affects 
only the diction, is a fair sample of the defects of our ver- 
sion in this respect, because it is in no way striking or excep- 
tional. 



Matt, xvi.,26. 
Ti yap w^eXeiTai 
avOpwiroe, kav rbv Koa- 

flOV 6\oV KEpC>]ffri) T)]V 

Ie \pv%t]v avrov Z,r\\ii- 
iodij ; 

"For what is a 
man profited, if he 
shall gain the whole 
world and lose his 
own soul ?" 



Mark viii., 36. 

TV yap w^eXZ/cct av- 
dpioTroy, kav Kephfjarrj 
TOV KOCTflOV 6'A.ov, KOI 
£r)fjii(i)Qr} T))v ^vyj]v 
avrou ; 

"For what shall 
it profit a man, if he 
shall gain the whole 
world and lose his 
own soul ?" 



Luke ix., 25. 

TV yap dxpeXelrai av- 
0pw7roc, KEphi'iaag tov 
k6(Tjjlov 6'A.ov, kavrbv Be 
aitoXiaaQ i) £r)fiiwdeic,', 

"For what is a 
man advantaged, if 
he gain the whole 
world, and lose him- 
self, or be cast 
away ?" 



Here the coincidences and divergences of the first two evan- 
gelists are fairly preserved, but the relations of the third to 
either are wholly confused or obliterated. 

My second example shall be of a different kind, where the 
variation introduced affects not the expression only, but the 
actual interpretation. 

In the explanation of the parable of the sower in St. Mark 

* See, for instance, Dean Alford's By-ways of New Testament Criticism, 
Contemporary Keview, July, 1868. 



ARTIFICIAL DISTIXCTIOXS CREATED. 



57 



iv.,lG, ol e~l -a irerpojcr) (nreipufievoi is properly translated "they 
which are soioi on stony ground," and the corresponding ex- 
pressions are treated similarly; but in St. Matthew xiii., 20, 
6 i-l -a TrerpujCr] (nrapeig becomes "He that received the seed into 
stony places," where (besides minor variations) the person is 
substituted for the seed, and the corresponding expressions 
throughout the parable are manipulated similarly in defiance 
of grammar. This rendering is unhappy on many accounts. 
Besides making the evangelists say different things, it has 
the still further disadvantage that it destroys one main idea 
in the parable, the identification (for the purposes of the par- 
able) of the seed when sown with the person himself so that 
the life, and growth, and decay of the one are coincident with 
the life, and growth, and decay of the other. The form of 
expression in St. Luke (viii., 14, to ce eic Tag acavdag -kzgov ovtoi 
ehriv ol aKo'.aavTeo) brings out this identity more prominently; 
but it is expressed not obscurely in the other evangelists, and 
should not have been obliterated by our translators in one 
of them through an ungrammatical paraphrase. 

My third example concerns the treatment of a single word. 
In the account of the scenes preceding the Crucifixion, men- 
tion is made of a certain building which by three of the evan- 
gelists is called irpmriopiov. In St. Matthew (xxvii., 21) it is 
translated "common-hall," with a marginal alternative "gov- 
ernor's house;" in St. John (xviii., 28, 33; xix., 9), "hall of 
judgment" and "judgment-hall," with a marginal alterna- 
tive, " Pilate's house," in the first passage ; while in St. Mark 
(xv., 16) it is reproduced in the English as " praetorium." It 
should be added that this same word, when it occurs in the 
same sense, though referring to a different locality, in Acts 
xxiii., 35, is rendered "judgment-hall," though a "judgment- 
hall" would obviously be an unfit place to keep a prisoner in 
ward; and again, in Phil, i., 13, iv 6X<o rw Trpai-iopLu) (where 
probably it signifies the " praetorian army," but where our 
English translators have taken it to mean another such build- 
ing), it appears as " palace." This last rendering might very 



58 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

properly have been adopted in all the passages in the Gos- 
pels and Acts, as adequately expressing the meaning. 

So, also, in those epistles which are allied to each other,* 
the treatment of identical words and expressions is neither 
more nor less unsatisfactory than in the Gospels. 

In the instances already given, though there may be differ- 
ences of opinion as to the importance of the subject, all prob- 
ably will agree on the main point, that it is advisable to pre- 
serve uniformity of rendering. The illustration which I shall 
next select is more open to criticism ; and as Archbishop 
Trench, and Dean Alford, and the Five Clergymen all take a 
different view from my own,f I can hardly hope that my ar- 
gument will carry general conviction. Yet the case seems 
to be_ strong. I refer to the translation of TraocaAryroc in the 
Gospel and in the First Epistle of St. John. In the former it 
is consistently translated Comforter (xiv.^ 16, 26 ; xv., 26 ; xvi., 
7), while in the one passage where it occurs in the latter (ii., 
I) the rendering Advocate is adopted. Is there sufficient 
reason for this difference ? No one, probably, would wish to 
alter the word " Advocate" in the Epistle, for the expressions 
in the context, " with the Father," " Jesus Christ the right- 
eous (St/ccuov)," " a propitiation for our sins," fix the sense, so 
that the passage presents a sufficiently close parallel w T ith the 
common forensic language of St.Paul (e.g., Rom. iii., 24-26). 
But why should the same word be rendered " Comforter" in 
the Gospel? Now I think it may fairly be maintained, first, 
that the word irapaKXrjTog in itself means "Advocate," and can 
not mean " Comforter ;" and, secondly, that the former ren- 
dering is more appropriate to the context in all the passages 
in which it occurs. 

* See Blunt's Duties of the Parish Priest, p. 71 ; Ellicott's Revision of the 
English New Testament, p. 101. 

f To the same effect also writes Archdeacon Hare, Mission of the Com- 
forter, Note J, p. 523 : "At present, so many sacred associations have con- 
nected themselves for generation after generation with the name of the Com- 
forter, that it would seem something like an act of sacrilege to change it." 
Yet he agrees substantially with the view of the meaning which I have main- 
tained in the text. 



ARTIFICIAL DISTINCTIONS CREATED. 59 

On the first point — the meaning of the word — usage ap- 
pears to be decisive. It commonly signifies " one who is sum- 
moned to the side of another (7rapa>,aX£7rat)" to aid him in a 
court of justice, and more particularly " an advocate" or "a 
pleader," being applied especially to the " counsel for the de- 
fense;"* nor, so far as I am aware, does it ever bear any other 
sense, except perhaps in some later ecclesiastical writers whose 
language has been influenced by a false interpretation of these 
passages in St. John. In other words 7rapai;Xr)Toc is passive, not 
active ; one who 7rctpaf;aXe7rcu, not one who napaKaXel. ; one who 
" is summoned to plead a cause," not one who " exhorts, or en- 
courages, or comforts." • Nor, indeed, if we compare the sim- 
ple word k\t\t6q and the other compounds avaKXrj-og, eytcXrj-oc, 
tKKXrjroQ, e7riK\r]Toc, (TvyKXrjrog, etc., or if we observe the general 
rule affecting adjectives similarly formed from transitive 
verbs, does it seem easy to assign an active sense to 7rapckX^- 
toq. Yet it can hardly be doubted that the rendering " Com- 
forter" was reached by attributing this active force to 7raoa- 
KXrjrog, and that therefore it arises out of an error ; for the 
Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, is again and again explained by the 
fathers as one who Trapa^-aXcT^ encourages or comforts men ; 
and the fact that even Greek writers are found to explain the 

* See Hermann, Griech. Antiq., iii., § 142, p. 320. The origin of this sense 
is illustrated by such passages as JEschines c. Ctesip7i.,§ 200, eat ri 8u ae Aij- 
fioaOtvr) 7rapaicaXslv ; orav 6' VTrtp7rn$r]oaQ tx\v cucaiav cnroXoyiav rcapa- 
icaXyg Kcucovpyov avBpajirov Kal rexvirnv Xoywv, kX'ztttuq ttjv aKpoamv, k.t.X. 

f So Origen, De Princ, ii., 7 (i., p. 93), a passage which unfortunately is 
extant only in the Latin, but in which (if correctly represented) Origen takes 
irapa.K\r)TOQ both in the Gospel and in the Epistle in an active sense, explain- 
ing it, however, consolator in the Gospel and deprecator in the Epistle. See 
also Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., xvi., 20 (p. 255), TrapciK\r)-oQ Ik KaXtZrai Sta 
to 7rapaKa\e7v Kal 7rapap.vQtXaBai Kal cvvavTiXanfiuvzaQai r/?c atjQtveiag t'jpL^v. 
And many of the Greek fathers explain it similarly. The fact to be observed 
is, that even in the Epistle, where it manifestly has the sense ' ' Advocate, " they 
equally derive it from rrapaKaXtiv, and not TcapaKaXtiaQai, thus giving it an 
active force, whereas the passage quoted in the last note shows that the mean- 
ing "Advocate" is not to be derived in this way. The Latin fathers gener- 
ally follow the old Latin "Advocatus;" but Hilary, though most frequently 
giving "Advocatus," yet once, at least, renders it " Consolator" {in Psalm. 
cxxv., i., p. 461). 



GO LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE K TEST. 

word thus is the only substantial argument (so far as I know) 
which has been brought against the view here maintained. 
It is urged, indeed, that the word " Comforter," being derived 
from the Latin " confortator," " strengthener," and therefore 
implying something more than " comfort" in the restricted 
sense of "consolation," adequately represents the function of 
the 7rapai:\r)Tog, who thus strengthens the cause and confirms 
the courage of the accused at the bar of justice. But the his- 
tory of the interpretation, as already given, shows that this 
rendering was not reached in the way assumed, but was based 
on a grammatical error, and therefore this account can only 
be accepted as an apology after the fact, and not as an ex- 
planation of the fact. Moreover, it is not fair translating to 
substitute a subordinate and accidental conception for the 
leading sense of a word. And, lastly, whatever may be the 
derivation of " Comforter," the word does not now suggest 
this idea to the English reader. 

But, secondly, if "Advocate" is the only sense which irapa- 
K\r)-og can properly bear, it is also (as I can not but think) the 
sense which the context suggests wherever the word is used 
in the Gospel. In other words, the idea of pleading, arguing, 
convincing, instructing, convicting, is prominent in every in- 
stance.* Thus, in xiv.,16 seq., the Paraclete is described as 
the " Spirit of truth" whose reasonings fall dead on the ear of 
the world, and are vocal only to the faithful (6 6 Koajiog ov hu- 
rarai \a(3e~iv . . . v/jleiq yivojcrKere avro). In xiv., 26, again, the 
function of the Paraclete is described in similar language, "He 
shall teach you all things, and remind you of all things." In 
xv., 26, he is once more designated the " Spirit of truth," and 
here the office assigned to him is to bear witness of Christ. 
And, lastly, in xvi., 7 seq., the idea of the 2)leader appears still 
more definitely in the context, for it is there declared that "he 

* In xiv., 18, the English Version, "I will not leave yon comfortless," lends 
a fictitious aid to the sense "Comforter," to which the original ovk d<pricruj v/uag 
dpQcivovg gives no encouragement. The margin, however, offers the altern- 
ative ' ' orphans" for cptpavovg. 



ARTIFICIAL DISTIXCTIOXS CREATED. 61 

shall convince" or " convict (eXiy&i) the world of sin, and of 
righteousness, and of judgment." And generally it may be 
said that the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, is represented in these 
passages as the Advocate, the Counsel, who suggests true rea- 
sonings to our minds and true courses of action for our lives, 
who convicts our adversary the World of wrong, and pleads 
our cause before God our Father. In short, the conception 
(though somewhat more comprehensive) is substantially the 
same as in St. Paul's language when describing the function 
of the Holy Ghost: "The Spirit itself beareth witness with 
our spirit that we are children of God;" "The Spirit helpeth 
our infirmities ; for we know not what we should pray for as 
we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with 
groanings which can not be uttered (Rom. viii., 16, 26.)" 

Thus, whether we regard the origin of the word, or wheth- 
er we consider the requirements of the context,* it would seem 
that "Comforter" should give way to "Advocate" as the in- 

* In a case like this we should naturally expect tradition to aid in deter- 
mining the correct sense, and for this purpose should apply to the earliest ver- 
sions as giving it in its best authenticated form ; but in the instance before us 
they do not render as much assistance as usual. (1.) The Old Latin seems 
certainly to have had Advocatus originally in all the four passages of the Gos- 
pel, as also in the passage of the Epistle. It is true that in the existing texts 
Parachtus (or Paraclitus) occurs in one or more of the passages, and in some 
MSS. in the others : but the earliest quotations from Tertullian onward must 
be considered decisive on this point. So far, therefore, tradition favors the 
sense which I am maintaining. Jerome retained the Greek word "Paracle- 
tus" in the Gospel, but gave "Advocatus" in the Epistle. It would appear, 
however, that " Paracletus" had already displaced "Advocatus" in some pas- 
sages in the Gospel in one or more of the many texts of the Old Latin which 
were current in the fourth century. (2.) In the Syriac versions the Greek 
word is retained. This is the case with the Curetonian in John xiv., 1G (the 
only passage preserved in this version), and with the Peshito throughout in 
both the Gospel and the Epistle. (3.) In the Egyptian versions also this is 
generally the case. In the Memphitic TrapdicXriTog appears in all the passages. 
In the Thebaic the rendering is different in the Gospels and in the Epistle. 
In the Epistle it is given, " One that prayeth (entreateth) for (over) us ;" but 
in the Gospel (at least in xiv. , 16 ; xv. , 20) the Greek word is retained. These 
parts of the Gospel in the Thebaic Version are not published, so far as I am 
aware ; but I am enabled to state these facts from some manuscript additions 
made by Dr.Tattam in my copy of Woide which Mas formerly in his possession. 



62 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

terpretation of TrapaKXrjrog. The word " Comforter" does in- 
deed express a true office of the Holy Spirit, as our most heart- 
felt experiences will tell us. Nor has the rendering, though 
inadequate, been without its use in fixing this fact in our 
minds ; but the function of the Paraclete, as our Advocate, is 
even more important, because wider and deeper than this. 
Nor will the idea of the " Comforter" be lost to us by the 
change, for the English Te Deum will still remain to recall 
this office of the Paraclete to our remembrance, while the res- 
toration of the correct rendering in the passages of St. John's 
Gospel will be in itself an unmixed gain. Moreover (and this 
is no unimportant fact), the language of the Gospel will thus 
be linked in the English Version, as it is in the original, with 
the language of the Epistle. In this there will be a twofold 
advantage. We shall see fresh force in the words thus ren- 
dered, " He will give you another Advocate," when we re- 
member that our Lord is styled by St. John our "Advocate:" 
the advocacy of Christ illustrating and being illustrated by 
the advocacy of the Spirit. At the same time, we shall bring 
out another of the many coincidences tending to establish an 
identity of authorship in the Gospel and Epistle, and thus to 
make valid for the former all the evidences, external and in- 
ternal, which may be adduced to prove the genuineness of the 
latter. 

This connection between the Gospel and the Epistle leads 
me to another illustration, which links the Gospel with the 
Apocalypse. The idea that the Shechinah, the trKrjvfi, the glory 
which betokened the divine presence in the Holy of Holies, 
and which was wanting to the second Temple, would be re- 
stored once more in Messiah's days, was a cherished hope of 
the Jewish doctors during and after the apostolic ages. In 
the Apocalypse St. John more than once avails himself of im- 
agery derived from this expectation. Thus, vii.,15, "He that 
sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them (ff/^iwa kn av- 
TovQ-" xiii., 6, "He opened his mouth in blasphemy against 
God, to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle (cKi^r), and 



ARTIFICIAL DISTIXCTIOXS CREATED. 63 

them that dwell (rovg aK^vovvraq) in heaven;" xxi., 3,"Beholcl, 
the tabernacle (ox^//) of God is with men, and he will dwell 
with them (ox?7>wa per aurwi')." Here it is much to be re- 
gretted that the necessities of the English language required 
our translators to render the substantive trKtivr) by one word 
and the verb a^vovv by another. In the first passage the 
significance is entirely lost by translating ckwuvei " shall 
dwell," combined with the erroneous rendering of e-i ; and no 
English reader would suspect the reference to the glory, the 
Shechinah, hovering over the mercy-seat.* But our regret is 
increased when we turn to the Gospel, for there also the same 
image reappears in the Greek, but is obliterated by the En- 
glish rendering : " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt (tW/- 
ruaer) among us, and we beheld his glory." The two writ- 
ings, which attribute the name of the Word of God to the In- 
carnate Son, are the same also which especially connect Mes- 
siah's advent with the restitution of the Shechinah, the light 
or glory which is the visible token of God's presence among 
men. In this instance the usage of the English language may 
have deterred our translators. Still they would have earned 
our gratitude if, following the precedent of the Latin taber- 
?iaculavit, they had anticipated later scholars, and introduced 
the verb "to tabernacle" into the English language; or, fail- 
ing this, if by some slight periphrasis they had endeavored 
to preserve the unity of idea. 

In other cases where artificial distinctions are introduced, 
our translators must be held blameless, for the exigencies of 
the English language left them no choice. Thus, in John iii., 
8, to 7rvevjjLa (the wind) o~ov 6i\ei (bloweth) .... ovrwe early 
ttc7q 6 yEvevvrijxivoQ in rov Hvev/iaroQ (the Spirit), we must pa- 
tiently acquiesce in the different renderings, though the com- 
parison between the material and immaterial rrviv^a is im- 
paired thereby, just as in a later passage (xx., 22, evEcpva-qaev 

* In 2 Cor. xii., 9, \va k-ioK-qvuay stt 1/j.e t) Zuvafiig rov Xpearou, trans- 
lated " that the power of Christ may rest upon me," there seems to be a sim- 
ilar reference to the symbol of the divine presence in the Holy of Holies. 

H 



64 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

kclI Xiyei avrole, Aajoere Hvedfia ayiov) the symbolical act of 
breathing on the disciples loses much of its force to an En- 
glish reader. Again, it might be necessary to vary the ren- 
derings of \puxn between " soul" and " life," and of ctw£eiv be- 
tween " to save" and " to make whole." But, in case of the 
former word, such variations as we find, for instance, in Matt, 
xvi., 25, 26, and the parallel passages, deserve to be reconsid- 
ered ; and in their treatment of the latter, as Dean Alford 
has shown,* our translators have diversified the rendering ca- 
priciously. 

And the same excuse also holds good with another class 
of words — where a paronomasia occurs in the original, but 
where it is impossible in English at once to preserve the sim- 
ilarity of sound and to give the sense adequately. In Phil, 
iii., 2, 3, indeed, our translators, following some of the earlier 
versions, have endeavored to reproduce the paronomasia, "Be- 
ware of the concision (Kararop/y), for Ave are the circumcision 
{irepiTOfjiij) ;" but the result is not encouraging, for it may be 
questioned whether " concision" conveys any idea to the En- 
glish reader. Again, the attempt is made in Kom. xii., 3, /d) 
vireptypove'iv nap o del (fypoveiv, aXXa typovElv elg to au)(j)povEly, but 
with no great success, for in the rendering " not to think of 
himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think so- 
berly," the force of the original is evaporated. On the other 
hand, the rendering of 1 Cor. vii., 31, oi yjptoiiEvoi tovtio tuj kog- 
fitd \l. top Kofffiov] ojq fi)) Ka-ayj)u)iievoi^ " they that use this world 
as not abusing it," is adequate. In other passages, such as 
Acts viii., 30, yiv6)crKeig a avayivojaKeiQ, " understandest thou 
what thou readest ?" 2 Cor. iii., 2, yiviorTKOfiivri Kai avayivioaKo- 
fxevri, " known and read ;" 2 Cor. i., 13, a avayivto<TK£-E i) Kai e-ki- 
yivtoGKETE, " what you read or acknowledge ;" 2 Cor. x., 12, oh 
ToXfxcofiEv EyKp~Lrcu H) GvyKp~ivai lav-ove, " we dare not make our- 
selves of the number or compare ourselves," it would be im- 
possible to reproduce the effect of the original. But in other 
cases, such as 1 Cor. xii., 2, &g av ijyEvdE, cnrayoLiEvoi, "carried 
* Contemporary Review, July, 1868, p. £23. 



REAL DISTIXCTIOXS OBLITERATED. q 5 

away as ye were led •" 2 Cor. i\\, 8, a-KopovjiEvoL u\X ok- k^uizo- 
pov/jevot, " we are perplexed, but not in despair;" or 2 Cor. vi., 
10, <vg fir]£iv Eyovrec icat ivuvra KareyovTec, " as having nothing, 
and yet possessing all things," the rendering might be im- 
proved. Nor is there any reason why the play on epya^ofi(- 
vovc, TrepiEpyaZo/jievovc, in 2 Thess. iii., 11, should not be preserved 
by " business," " busy-bodies ;" or why, in Ephes. v., 15, p) us 
cHTofoi d\\' wc aotydi should not be rendered " not as unwise, 
but as wise." In this latter passage the word aaotyoe, which 
occurs nowdiere else in the New Testament, has been purpose- 
ly preferred to the usual fiupoc. Yet our translators have ren- 
dered aaocpoi " fools" here, and reserved " unwise" for a^portc, 
two verses below, where it is not wanted. 

§3. 
From the creation of artificial distinctions in our English 
Version by different renderings of the same word, we pass 
naturally to the opposite fault, the obliteration of real distinc- 
tions by the same rendering of different words. The former 
error is easily corrected for the most part, the latter not al- 
ways so ; for the synonyms of one language frequently can 
not be reproduced in another without a harsh expression or a 
cumbersome paraphrase. Thus oT£a, yivwoxw, 'iyvwKa, ETrhrafiat, 
have different shades of meaning in the Greek, but the ob- 
vious equivalent for each in English is " I know." Still, some 
effort should be made (though success is not always possible) 
to discriminate between them, where they occur in the same 
context, and where, therefore, their position throws a special 
emphasis on the distinction. Thus, in Acts xix.,15,we should 
not acquiesce in "Jesus I know, and Paul I know," as a ren- 
dering of tov 'Irjarovv yivioatsu) Kal tuv HaiiXov ETriaraji ai, though 
all the preceding translations unite with our Authorized Ver- 
sion in» obliterating the difference. The significant distinc- 
tion which is made in the original between the kind of recog- 
nition in the case of the divine agent and of the human in- 
strument may easily be preserved by rendering "Jesus I 



qq LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

acknowledge, and Paul I know." Again, in such passages as 
2 Cor. v., 16, cnro rov vvv obdiva o'idajjiEv kclto. aapKa, el ko.1 Eyvwtca- 
jjlev kclto. aapKa XpurTov, aXXa vvv ovketl yivtoaKOjiEV (and this is 
a type of a large class of passages, where olSa and yivojaKio oc- 
cur together), some improvement should be attempted ; nor, 
in the instance given, could there be any difficulty in vary- 
ing the rendering, though elsewhere the task might not prove 
so easy. 

From these allied words I pass on to the distinction be- 
tween yivu)(TKeiv and e7nyivojaKEiv, which is both clearer and 
more easily dealt with. Those who have paid any attention 
to the lansfuaoje of St. Paul will recognize the force of the 
substantive emyvioaig as denoting the advanced or perfect 
knowledge which is the ideal state of the true Christian, and 
will remember that it appears only in his later epistles (from 
the Romans onward), where the more contemplative aspects 
of the Gospel are brought into view, and its comprehensive 
and eternal relations more fully set forth. But the power 
of the preposition appears in the verb no less than in the sub- 
stantive ; and, indeed, its significance is occasionally forced 
upon our notice, where the simple and the compound verb 
appear in the same context. Thus, in 1 Cor. xiii.,12, apn yi- 
vlogkio ek fxipovg, tote Se ETnyvio(ro^.ai Kadtog rat ETEyvLocrdrjv, the 
partial knowledge (yaw/cay k iiipovg, comp. ver. 9) is contrast- 
ed with the full knowledge (ETnyiv^aKEiv) which shall be at- 
tained hereafter, though our translators have rendered both 
words by "know." Yet, strangely enough, where the special 
force of the compound was less obvious, it has not escaped 
them; for in 2 Cor. vi., 9, cog ayvoovjjevoi teal ETnyivuaKOfiEvoL is 
translated " as unknown, and yet well known? 

In this particular — the observance of the distinctions be- 
tween a. simple word and its derivatives compounded with 
prepositions — our English Version is especially faulty. The 
verb KpivEiv and its compounds will supply a good illustration. 
St. Paul especially delights to accumulate these, and thus, by 
harping upon words (if I may use the expression), to empha- 



REAL DISTINCTIONS OBLITERATED. 



67 



size great spiritual truths or important personal experiences. 
Thus he puts together avyKpLvEiv, avaKpivEiv, 1 Cor. ii., 13-15 ; 
Kpiveiv, cipaKpiveiv, 1 Cor. iv., 3, 4 ; Eyicpu'Eiv, avyKpivEiv, 2 Cor. X., 
1 2 ; Kpiveiv, dictKptvEiv, 1 Cor. vi., 1-6 ; KpivEiv, ZiaKpivEw, KaraKpivEiv, 
Rom.xiv.,22, 23; 1 Cor.xi.,29, 31, 32; tcplvEiv, KaTatcpivEiv, Rom. 
ii., 1. Now it seems impossible in most cases, without a sac- 
rifice of English which no one would be prepared to make, to 
reproduce the similarity of sound or the identity of root ; but 
the distinction of sense should always be preserved. How 
this is neglected in our version, and what confusion ensues 
from the neglect, the following instances will show. In 1 
Cor. iv., 3, 4, 5, ejjlol £e eiq EXayiVTOV kcrriv 'iva h(f vjiCov avaKpiBib 
. . . aXX ov<5e kjiavrbv avaKpivio . . . 6 Ze avaKpivw v fj.E Kvpwg 

EffTLV . . . &GTE /!)) 7TjOO KCtipOV Tt KOLVETE, EO)Q O.V E.\$r] 6 KvpiOC. OQ 

Kal (j)u)rhEL ra KpvwTa rou (tkctovq, the word avoLKpivEiv is trans- 
lated throughout "judge," while in a previous passage, 1 Cor. 
ii., 14, 15, it is rendered indifferently "to discern" and "to 
judge." But ava.Kpt.vEiv is neither " to judge," which is KpivEiv, 
nor " to discern," which is ZiaKpivEiv, but " to examine, investi- 
gate, inquire into, question," as it is rightly translated else- 
where, e. g., 1 Cor. ix., 3 ; x., 25, 27 ; and the correct under- 
standing of the passages before us depends on our retaining 
this sense. The avaKptaiQ, it will be remembered, was an Athe- 
nian law term for a preliminary investigation (distinct from 
the actual KpltriQ, or trial), in which evidence was collected, 
and the prisoner committed for trial if a true bill was found 
against him. It corresponded, in short, mutatis mutandis, to 
the part taken in English law proceedings by the grand jury. 
And this is substantially the force of the word here. The 
apostle condemns all these impatient human prwjudicia, these 
unauthorized avavipiaEic,, which anticipate the final Kplmc, re- 
serving his case for the great tribunal, when at length all 
the evidence will be forthcoming, and a satisfactory verdict 
can be given. Meanwhile this process of gathering evidence 
has begun ; an avckpto-ie is indeed being held, not, however, 
by these self-appointed magistrates, but by One who alone 



68 LIGHTFOOT ON A FMESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

has the authority to institute the inquiry, and the ability to 
sift the facts: 6 fie avaKpivbyv /jle Kvpiog kanv. Of this half tech- 
nical sense of the word the New Testament itself furnishes a 
good example. The examination of St. Paul before Festus is 
both in name and in fact an avaKpimg. The Roman procurator 
explains to Agrippa how he had directed the prisoner to be 
brought into court (irporiyayov aurov), in order that, having 
held the preliminary inquiry usual in such cases (r 9} g auaKpiaeiog 
y£voj.dvriQ), he might be able to lay the case before the emperor 
(Acts xxv., 26). Thus St.Paul's meaning here suffers very 
seriously by the wrong turn given to avaicplveiv; nor is this 
the only passage where the sense is impaired thereby. In 1 
Cor. xiv., 24, eXiy^erai vttu -kcivtwv, a vaKpi [vetch virb ttclvtwv, \kcl\ 
ovtu)] ra KpvTTTa Tfjg KaplLciQ (tvTou tyavEpa yivtTCLi, the sense re- 
quired is clearly " sifting, probing, revealing," and the render- 
ing of our translators, " he is judged of all," introduces an 
idea alien to the passage. Again, only five verses lower down 
(xiv., 29), another compound of KpivEiv occurs and is similarly 
treated : irpofyrJTai fie hvo r) Tpslg XaXeirdxray Kal ol a\\oi hiaKptvETU}- 
aav, " let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other 
judge" where it would be difficult to attach any precise 
meaning to the English without the aid of the Greek, and 
where certainly ^laKpivirwaav ought to be rendered " discern" 
rather than "judge." 

Another passage which I shall take to illustrate the mode 
of dealing with Kpiveiv and its compounds is still more impor- 
tant. In 1 Cor. xi., 28-34, a passage in which the English 
rendering is chargeable with some serious practical conse- 
quences, and where a little attention to the original will cor- 
rect more than one erroneous inference, the rendering of KpL- 
veiv, ^icLKpLveiv, KaraKptveiv, is utterly confused. The Greek runs 
ZoKifia^irii) Ze avQpojizog kavrov Kal ovriog ek tov aprov eardieroj Kal ek 
tov 7rorr]piov tuvetio' 6 yap eaQiiov Kal irlvtov \_arat,ib)g~\ Kpl.fia eavru) 
ecrdlei Kal tv'ivel^ fit) diaKpii'OJv to awfia [too Kvpiov]' . . . eI Ze lav- 

TOVg (ilEKpiVOflEV) OVK CIV EKplVO/jLEda, KptVO/JlEVOL %£ V7TO TOV Kv- 

piov Traidevo/j-EQa, 'Ira juirj avv ~u> KOGfio) KaraKptQuyfiEV . . . . e'i rig 



HEAL DISTIXCTIOXS OBLITERATED. 



69 



TTEivq., kv o'lKu) eadieroj. 'Iva /ju) elg Kpi/jia crvvep-^rjade, where the 
words in brackets should be omitted from the text. The En- 
glish rendering corresponding to this is, " But let a man ex- 
amine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of 
that cup; for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth 
and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's 
body. . . . For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be 
judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the 
Lord, that we should not be condemned with the w^orld. . . . 
If any man hunger, let him eat at home, that ye come not to- 
gether unto condemnation." Here the faults are manifold. 
In the first place, Kpifia is rendered by two separate words, 
"damnation" and "condemnation;" and, though we can not 
fairly charge our translators with the inferences practically 
drawn from the first word, yet this is a blemish which we 
would gladly remove. But, in fact, both' words are equally 
wrong, the correct rendering "judgment" having in either 
case been relegated to the margin, where it has lain neglect- 
ed, and has exercised no influence at all on the popular mind. 
And this circumstance (for it is only a sample of the fate 
which has befallen numberless valuable marginal readings 
elsewhere) suggests an important practical consideration. If 
the marginal renderings are intended for English-reading peo- 
ple (and for scholars they are superfluous), they will only 
then fulfill their purpose when the margin is regarded as an 
integral portion of our English Bibles, and when it is ordered 
by authority that these alternative readings shall always be 
printed with the text. This, then, is the second error of our 
translators : Kpiveir, KaraKpivuv, are confused, when the force of 
the passage depends on their being kept separate ; for these 
Kpifiara in the apostle's language are temporary judgments, 
differing so entirely from Kara\:pi\xa that they are intended to 
have a chastening effect, and to save from condemnation, as 
he himself distinctly states: Kptvofievoi ce virb Kvpiov 7raidsv6- 
/u€0a, 'Iva fxy) avv rw Koafio) KaraKpidw/Jiev. Lastly, the version 
contains a third error in the confusion of Kpiveiv and SiaKpiveiv; 



70 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

for whereas ZiaKpivovreQ to ato/jia is correctly translated " dis- 
cerning the body of the Lord" at the first occurrence of ZiaKpl- 
veiv, yet when the word appears again it is rendered "judge," 
to the confusion of the sense : el kavrovg (iiEKpLvojiEv, ovk av Upi- 
vo/jieda, " If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged" 
where it ought to stand, "If we had discerned ourselves, we 
should not have been judged." In fact, St. Paul speaks of 
three stages, marked respectively by ciaicpLveiv, KpLvEiv, and m- 
TaKpiveiv. The first word expresses the duty of persons before 
and in communicating : this duty is twofold ; they must dis- 
cern themselves and discern the Lord's body, that they may 
understand, and not violate the proper relations between the 
one and the other. The second expresses the immediate con- 
sequences which ensue from the neglect of this duty — the 
judgments which are corrective and remedial, but not final. 
The third denotes the final condemnation, which only then 
overtakes a man when the second has failed to reform his char- 
acter. But this sequence is wholly obliterated in our ver- 
sion. In Rom. xiv., 22, 23, again, where the words occur to- 
gether, it would have been well to have kept the distinction, 
though here the confusion is not so fatal to the meaning: 
" Happy is he that condemneth not himself (6 p) KpLvuv kav-bv) 
in that thing which he alloweth (ev J cWt^a£a) : and he that 
doubteth (6 he liaKpivofAEvog) is damned (KaraKUpirai) if he eat, 
because he eateth not of faith." St. Paul is not satisfied in 
this case that a man should not condemn himself; he must 
not even judge himself. In other words, the case must be so 
clear that he has no need to balance conflicting arguments 
with a view to arriving at a result. Otherwise he should ab- 
stain altogether, for his eating is not of faith. Here our trans- 
lators have rendered diaKpivo/jievog rightly, but a misgiving ap- 
pears to have occurred to them, for in the margin they add, 
"Or, discerneth and putteth a difference between meats," 
which would be the active 6 hiaKplvuv. Indeed, an evil desti- 
ny would seem to have pursued them throughout when deal- 
ing with compounds o^KpivEiv, for in another passage (2 Cor. i., 



REAL DISTINCTIONS OBLITERATED. 71 

9) they render cnroicptpa " sentence," though the correct mean- 
ing " answer" is given in the margin. 

This neglect of prepositions in compound words is a very 
frequent fault in our version. In the parable of the wheat 
and the tares, indeed, though the correct reading describes 
the sowing in the one case by cnreipeiv, and in the other by 
hrurw€ip€iv (Matt, xiii., 24, 25), yet no blame can attach to our 
translators for not observing the distinction, as they had in 
their text the faulty reading 'itnrEipE for kTricnrEiatv. But else- 
where this excuse can not be pleaded in their behalf. Thus, 
in the parable of the wedding-feast, there is a striking varia- 
tion of lan^ua^e between the commission of the master and 
its execution by the servants, which ought not to have been 
effaced. The order given is Topeveade etz\ rag cieZoSovq -&v 
6Swy, but as regards its fulfillment we read simply E&XQovTEg 
elg rag 6%ovg (Matt, xxii., 9, 10). In this change of expression 
we seem to see a reference to the imperfect work of the hu- 
man agents as contrasted with the urgent and uncompromis- 
ing terms of the command, which bade them scour the public 
thoroughfares, following all their outlets ; and certainly it is 
slovenly work to translate both rag cu&covg tCjv ocCjv and -he 
blovg alone by the same rendering " highways." A similar 
defect, again, is the obliteration of the distinction between 
cairavav and EKcairavav in 2 Cor. xii., 15, "I will very gladly 
spend (ccnravtifTh)) and be spent (EKZa-avrjdtivofiai) for you," 
where " wholly spent" would give the force of the compound. 
But examples of this kind might be multiplied. AYould it not 
be possible, for instance, to find some rendering which, with- 
out any shock to good taste, would yet distinguish between 
(pL\E~iy and Ka-a(pi\Elv in such passages as Matt, xxvi., 48, 49, ov 
av (pi\i)a(x) avrug egtiv .... kcu Ka.T£<piXr)GEV clvtov, and Luke 
Vll., 45, 46, (plXrjfia jiol ovk uki^ac, avrr] hi . . . ov cle\i7tev kcltcl- 
(piXovara rovg Trocag yuov, so as to bring out the extravagance 
of the treachery in the one case and the depth of the devo- 
tion in the other, implied in the strong compound xarcHpiXEliv ? 

Hardly less considerable is the injury inflicted on the sense 



72 LIGHTFOOT ON A FEESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

by failing to observe the different force of prepositions when 
not compounded. Of this fault one instance must suffice. In 
2 Cor. iii., 11, el yap to Karapyovjievov d ici o6t,r)g, 7to\\gJ fxdWov 
to jjtivov iv doty, "For if that which is done away teas glorious, 
much more that which remaineth is glorious" the distinction 
of ota dofyg and h dot,y is obliterated, though the change is sig- 
nificant in the original, where the transitory flush and the 
abiding presence are distinguished by the change of preposi- 
tions, and thus another touch is added to the picture of the 
contrast between the two dispensations. 

Again, how much force is lost by neglecting a change of 
gender in the English rendering of John i., 11, "He came to 
his own (elg to. t&a), and his own (ol 'idiot) received him not." 
Here the distinction in the original between the neuter tci'IBicl 
and the masculine ol 'idiot at once recalls the parable in Matt. 
xxi., 33 seq., in which the vineyard corresponds to -a 'idta and 
the husbandmen to ol 'idiot; but our version makes no distinc- 
tion between the place and the persons — between " his own 
home" and "his own people." Doubtless there is a terseness 
and a strength in the English rendering which no one would 
willingly sacrifice ; but the sense ought to be the first con- 
sideration. 

Let me pass to an illustration of another kind, where con- 
fusion is introduced by the same rendering of different verbs : 
1 Cor. xiv., 36," What, came the word of God out from you? 
or came it unto you only ?" Here there appears to the En- 
glish reader to be an opposition between from and unto, and 
the two interrogative s seem to introduce alternative proposi- 
tions. The original, however, is ?} d^' hfiCbv 6 \6yog tov Qeov 
e'tfjXdev >} elg l/pag ixovovg KaT)]VTr)(rev, where the fault of the En- 
glish Version is twofold ; the same word is used in rendering 
e'ZrjXdei' and KaTijvTrjaer, and jjtovovg is represented by the ambig- 
uous " only." Thus the emphasis is removed from the pro- 
noun you in both clauses to the prepositions, and the two hy- 
potheses are made to appear mutually exclusive. The trans- 
lation of Tyndale, which was retained even in the Bishops' 



REAL DISTIXCTIOXS OBLITERATED. ^3 

Bible, though somewhat harsh, is correct and forcible," Spronge 
the worcle of God from you ? Ether came it unto you only ?"* 
Much attention has been directed by recent writers to the 
synonyms of the New Testament. They have pointed out 
what is lost to the English reader by such confusions as those 
of av\i),fold, and -oifivrj, flock, in John x., 16, where in our ver- 
sion the same word fold stands for both,f though the point 
of our Lord's teaching depends mainly on the distinction be- 
tween the many folds and the one flock; of covXol and cuikovoi, 
in the parable of the wedding-feast (Matt, xxii., 1 seq.),both 
rendered by servants, though they have different functions as- 
signed to them, and though they represent two distinct class- 
es of beings — the one human, the other angelic ministers;]; of 
KvfiroL and (nrvpicse, in the miracles of feeding the five thou- 
sand and the four thousand respectively — both translated bas- 
kets — though the words are set over against each other in the 
evangelic narratives (Matt, xvi., 9, 10 ; Mark viii., 19, 20), and 
seem to point to a different nationality of the multitudes in 
the two cases; of §a and drjpia in the Apocalypse, both rep- 
resented by beasts, though the one denotes the beings who 

* A very important passage, in which the hand of the reviser is needed, 
may perhaps be noted here. The correct Greek text of Matt. v. , 32 is ~ag 
6 cnroXvojv ti)v yvvaiKa avrov, Trapeicrbg \6yov iropvtiag, iroul avrrjv fioi- 
X£vOi)vai, Kcti dc. iav a.7ro\e\vpsvT]v yapi]aij poi\a.Tai, where our English 
Version has "Whosoever shall put away his wife saving for the cause of for- 
nication causeth her to commit adultery ;" and "whosoever shall marry her 
that is divorced committeth adultery." Here the English Version casts equal 
blame on the woman, thus doing her an injustice, for obviously she is not in 
the same position with the husband as regards guilt ; but the Greek poixevOfj- 
vai (not /.loixucQai), being a passive verb, implies something quite different. 
In this instance, however, the fault does not lie at the door of our translators, 
who, instead of poixevOijvai, had the false reading poixaoQai; but, the correct 
text being restored, a corresponding change in the English rendering is nec- 
essary. Compare also the various reading in Matt, xix., 9. 

t Tyndale and Coverdale preserve the distinction of flock and fold. In the 
Great Bible it disappears. 

t Here again the older versions generally preserve the distinction, trans- 
lating coiiXoi, SuiKoyoi,bj " servants," "ministers,"' respectively. TheRheims 
Version has "waiters" for dt&Kovot. In this case the Geneva Bible was the 
first to obliterate the distinction, which was preserved even in the Bishops'. 



74 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

worship before the throne of heaven, and the other the mon- 
sters whose abode is the abyss beneath. For other instances, 
and generally for an adequate treatment of this branch of 
exegesis, I shall be content to refer to the works of Archbish- 
op Trench and others ; but the following examples, out of 
many which might be given, will serve as further illustrations 
of the subject, which is far from being exhausted. 

In John xiii., 23, 25, i)v de avaKEijiEvog elq ek t&v jiadmCjv av- 
tov kv tu> koXtto) tov 'Irjirov . . . avawEatov ekeIvoq ovtuq etv\ to (tttj- 
Ooq tov 'Irjaov Xey^? " Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom 
one of his disciples . . . He then lying on Jesus' breast saith," 
the English Version makes no distinction between the reclin- 
ing position of the beloved disciple throughout the meal, de- 
scribed by apaKEtjjiEroc, and the sudden change of posture at 
this moment, introduced by ava-KEanov. This distinction is fur- 
ther enforced in the original by a change in both the prepo- 
sitions and the nouns, from kv to iiri, and from koXttoc to ot?70oc. 
St. John was reclining on the bosom of his Master, and he sud- 
denly threw back his head upon his breast to ask a question. 
Again, in a later passage, a reference occurs — not to the re- 
clining position, but to the sudden movement* — in xxi., 20, 

0£ Kal aVETTEGEV EV TO) ^ELTZVO) E7TI TO <TT)~]doQ CLVTOV KCU £~17TEV, whei'e 

likewise it is misunderstood by our translators, " which also 
leaned on his breast and said." This is among the most strik- 
ing of those vivid descriptive traits which distinguish the 
narrative of the fourth Gospel generally, and which are espe- 

* The word avan'i-KTuv occurs several times in the Kew Testament, and al- 
ways signifies a change of position, for indeed this idea is inherent in the word. 
It is used of a rower bending back for a fresh stroke {e.g., Polyb., i., 21, 2), 
of a horse suddenly checked and rearing (Plat., Phce.dr., 254 b, e), of a guest 
throwing himself back on the couch or on the ground preparatory to a meal 
(Matt. xv. , 35 ; John xiii. ,12, etc. ). 

The received text of xiii., 25 runs, i-Kiireawv dk Ikuvoq iici to (rrij6og,ic.T.\., 
but the correct reading is as given above. The substitution of tirnreGujv, how- 
ever, does not tell in favor of our translators ; for this word ought to have 
shown, even more clearly than dvarreacov, that a change of posture was intend- 
ed. The ovtcjq, which appears in the correct text, and gives an additional 
touch to the picture, has a parallel in iv., 6, tKaOt^ero o'vtwc t~i t?j Trrjyy. In 
xxi., 20, there is no various reading. 



REAL DISTINCTIONS OBLITERATED. f 5 

cially remarkable in these last scenes of Jesus's life, where the 
beloved disciple was himself an eye-witness and an actor. It 
is therefore to be regretted that these fine touches of the pic- 
ture should be blurred in our English Bibles. 

Again, in 1 Cor. xiv., 20, p) 7rat3t'a yiveaQe ratg typeaiv, uXXa 
rri KctKiy vrjTriaZere, much force is lost by the English render- 
ing, "Be not children in understanding; howbeit in malice 
be ye children." In the original St.Paul is not satisfied that 
his converts should be merely children in vice ; they must be 
something less than this; they must be guileless as babes; 
and we can not afford to obliterate the distinction between 
7raic)/a and vijmoi. Again, in this same chapter (ver. 'z), ojjiojg 
Ta tc^vya (f)(jjv))v Sicovra . . . kav ctaaToX))v ro~ig (pduyyoig fxt) huj is 
translated " Even things without life giving sound . . . ex- 
cept they give a distinction in the sounds" where certainly 
different words should have been found for (jxoyi) and Qdoyyogf 
and yet our translators did not fail through poverty of ex- 
pression, for three verses below they have rendered (puval 
voices, and atywvov without signification. In the margin they 
suggest tunes for (pdoyyoig, and this would be preferable to re- 
taining the same word. As <pd6yyog is used especially of mu- 
sical sounds, perhaps notes might be adopted. This is just a 
case where a word not elsewhere found in the English Bible 
might be safely introduced, because there is no incongruity 
which jars upon the ear. Again, in the following chapter (xv., 
40), erepa fiev ?/ rwv STrovpavliov t)6t,a, Iripa De >/ tCjv eKiyelioy. aXXr) 
ho'Za yXiov Kal aXXr) c6t,a (TtXip'-qg ical aXXr) cofa aorepwv, the words 
aXXr) and hipa are translated alike, "The glory of the celestial 
is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one 
glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory 
of the stars." Yet it is hardly to be doubted that St. Paul 
purposely uses kripa when he is speaking of things belonging 
to different classes, as e-n-ovpavia and £7rlyeia, and aXXr] when he 
is speaking of things belonging to the same class, as the sun, 
and moon, and stars ; for this is the proper distinction between 
aXXrj and hipa, that, whereas the former denotes simply dis- 



7 6 LIGHTFO OT CLV A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

tinction of individuals, the latter involves the secondary idea 
of difference of hind. In fact, the change in the form of the 
sentence by which do'fa, Z>6't,a, from being marked out as the 
subjects by the definite article and distinguished by jiey . . . 
de in the first place, become simply predicates, and are con- 
nected by Kal . . . Kcti in the second, corresponds to the change 
from hipa to a\\r) in passing from the one to the other. These 
words aXXoc, erepog, occur together more than once, and in all 
cases something is lost by effacing the distinction. In Gal. 
i., 6, davfja^u) on ovtoj ra-^iiog iierariOeade . . . elg erepop evayyi- 
Xiop, u ovk toTiv aXXo, translated "I marvel that ye are so soon 
removed . . . unto another Gospel which is not another" the 
sense would be brought out by giving each word its proper 
force; and again, in 2 Cor. xi., 4, ciXXov 'Irjvovp K^pvaaei op ovk 
etctipv^afiEV i) 7rvevfia erepop Xafi^avere o ovk eXafjere, though the 
loss is less considerable, the distinction might with advantage 
have been preserved. In these instances, however, a reviser 
might be deterred by the extreme difficulty in distinguishing 
the two, without introducing some modernism. In the pas- 
sage first quoted (1 Cor. xv.,40),the end might perhaps be at- 
tained by simply substituting "other" for "another" in ren- 
dering erepa. 

Still more important is it to mark the distinction between 
elvai and ylvscrdai, where our translators have not observed it. 
Thus our English rendering of John viii., 58, "Before Abra- 
ham was, I am" loses half the force of the original, 7rp\v 
'A(3paafi yeviadai, kyu dpi, " Before Abraham teas born, I am." 
The becoming only can be rightly predicated of the patri- 
arch; the being is reserved for the Eternal Son alone. Sim- 
ilar in kind, though less in degree, is the loss in the rendering 
of Luke vi., 36, yipeads olKripuopeg raOwc [rat] 6 7ran/p vj.iwp o~lk- 
Tipfiu)v kar'iv, "JBe ye merciful, as your Father also is merci- 
ful." Here also the original expresses the distinction between 
the imperfect effort and the eternal attribute.* 

* In 1 Pet. i., 16, our translators, when they gave the rendering u Be ye 
holy, for I am holy," had before them the reading ayioi ysptaQe, on tyCo 
aywg el fit, but the correct text is ayioi tosaOe, on syo) dyiog (omitting dpi). 



REAL DISTINCTIONS OBLITERATED. 77 

Illustrations of similar defects might be multiplied, though 
in many cases it is much easier to point out the fault than to 
suggest the remedy. Thus such a rendering as 2 Cor. vii., 
10, "For godly sorrow worketh repentance (neravoiav) to sal- 
vation not to be repented of (a^era/xfXrj-ov)," belongs to this 
class. Here the Geneva Testament has " causeth amendment 
unto salvation not to be repented of," and perhaps it were 
best, in this instance, to sacrifice the usual rendering of /lera- 
vota in order to preserve the distinction (unless, indeed, we 
are prepared to introduce the word "regret" for /jLerafieXeia) , 
especially as fiera/jiiXtfTdai in the context is consistently trans- 
lated " repent." Again, it were desirable to find some better 
rendering of iraaa hoaiQ aya0j) icai irav c^prj/na riXeiov in James 
i., 17, than "every good gift and every perfect gift" since a 
contemporary of St. James especially distinguishes cuaig, Sofia . 
from dwpov, dwpea, etc., saying that the latter are much stron- 
ger, and involve the idea of magnitude and fullness, which is 
wanting to the former (Philo, Leg. All, iii., TO, p. 126, l^atnv 
fieyedovg TEXeiwv ayaduiv SrjXovaiv, K.r.X.j COmp. de Cherilb., 23, 
p. 154), and applying to them the very same epithet "perfect" 
which occurs in the passage before us. And yet the distinc- 
tion would be dearly purchased at the cost of an offensive 
Latinism. But, whatever difficulty there may be in finding 
different renderings here, it was certainly not necessary in 
the sentence immediately preceding, " When lust hath con- 
ceived, it bringeth forth sin ; and sin, when it is finished, bring- 
eth forth death," »'/ e-nidvfiia (TvXXafjouaa tiktel cijiapriav, y <)e ufxap- 
Tia axoreXEcrQeiaa cnvoKuet Qavarov, either to obliterate a real 
distinction by giving the same rendering of rk-ei and Ilttokvel, 
or to create an artificial distinction by adopting different 
forms of sentences for >/ L-rndyfjiia cryXXafoovaa and ?/ ci/uapria cltto- 
TeXEardelaa. The English might run, "Lust, when it hath con- 
ceived, bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is perfected (or 
" grown"), gendereth death." Again, in Rom. xii., 2, " Be not 
conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renew- 
ing of your mind," for p) av^x^^^TiCfode rw alwia tovtu) aXXa 



78 LI&HTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

jj.eraiJLop(f)ov(Tde Trj avciKau'waei rov vobq [i/jLtwv], the English not 
only suggests an identity of expression which has no place 
in the original, but obliterates an important distinction be- 
tween the o^ua, or fashion, and the fioptyrj, or form — between 
the outward and transitory, and the abiding and substantial. 
We might translate pr) (Tvaxn^arL^eade, k.t.X., " Be ye not fash- 
ioned after this world, but be ye transformed in the renew- 
ing, etc.," thus partially retracing our steps, and following on 
the track of Tyndale's and other earlier versions, which have 
" Fashion not yourselves like unto this world," and so pre- 
serve the distinction of cx^a and //op^// (though they are not 
very happy in their rendering of fieTafioptyovade," Be ye changed 
in your shape)." In this instance our translators have fol- 
lowed the guidance of Wicliffe and the Rheims Version, which 
have conformed and reformed. In another passage, Phil., ii., 
6 seq., where the distinction of \iop§Y\ and ayj]\ia is still more 
important, it is happily preserved in our Authorized Version : 
" Being in the form of God," " took upon him the form of a 
servant," "being found in fashion as a man." 

In other cases, where it is even more important for the 
sense to observe the distinction of synonyms, we seem to 
have no choice but to acquiesce in the confusion. At an ear- 
lier stage of the language it might have been possible to es- 
tablish different renderings, but now the English equivalents 
are so stereotyped that any change seems impossible. Thus 
the rendering ofdui(3o\oc and daifioviov by the same word "dev- 
il" is a grievous loss ; and it is much to be regretted that 
Wicliffe's translation of SaifjLoriop by " fiend" was not adopted 
by Tyndale, in which case it would probably have become 
the current rendering. Now the sense of incongruity would 
make its adoption impossible. Still greater misunderstand- 
ing arises from translating Hades the place of departed spir- 
its, and Gehenna the place of fire and torment, by the same 
word "hell," and thus confusing two ideas wholly distinct. 
In such a passage as Acts ii., 27, 31, the misconception thus 
created is very serious. Is it possible even now to naturalize 



MEAL DISTINCTIONS OBLITERATED. ^9 

the word Hades, and give it a place in our version, or must 
we be satisfied with pointing out in the margin in each case 
whether the word " hell" represents Hades or Gehenna ? An- 
other, though a less important instance, is the word " tem- 
ple," which represents both moc, the inner shrine or sanctu- 
ary, and lepuv, the whole of the sacred precincts. Thus, in the 
English Version, an utter confusion of localities results from 
a combination of two such passages as Matt. xxiii.,35,"Whom 
ye slew between the temple (rov vaov) and the altar," and 
Matt, xxi.,12, " Them that sold and bought in the temple" (lv 
rat iepu>). In the first case, for tov vaov St. Luke (xi.,51) uses 
tov o'ikov, " the house," the building which is, as it were, the 
abode of the divine presence ; but our English translators 
have boldly rendered even tov oikov by " the temple." More 
hopeless still is it to preserve the distinction between Ovaiaar- 
rrjpiov, the Jewish, and (jiofioc. the heathen altar, the latter word 
occurring only once in the New Testament (Acts xvii., 23), 
and the poverty of our language obliging us there to trans- 
late it by the same word as Ovataarripior. 

" The contrast of Jew and Gentile involved in these last 
words recalls another pair of synonyms, which present the 
same relation to each other, and in which the distinction is 
equally impracticable — Xaoc, used especially of the chosen 
people and in contradistinction to the Gentiles (e.g., Acts iv., 
25, 27 ; x., 2 ; xxi., 28 ; Rom. ix., 25, 26 ; 1 Pet. ii., 10, etc.), 
and hfjfioc, denoting the people of a heathen city, and more 
particularly when gathered together in the popular assembly 
(e.g., at Caasarea, Acts xii., 22;* at Thessalonica, Acts xvii., 
5 ; at Ephesus, Acts xix., 30, 33). 

* A heathen multitude, such as would naturally he found in a city which 
was the seat of the Roman government, is contemplated here, as the whole in- 
cident shows. Hence Tyndale and the later versions rightly translate 9eov 
(piovrj Kai ovk dv6pu)~ov (ver. 22), "The voice of a god and not of a man," 
where Wicliffe has "The voice of God and not of man." When the Jews 
of Ccesarea are especiallv intended, 6 Xabg is used instead of 6 dtjfxog : Acts 
x.,2. 

I 



80 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

§ 4 - 
Another class of errors, far more numerous and much more 
easily corrected than the last, is due to the imperfect knowl- 
edge of Greek grammar in the age in which our translators 
lived. And here it is instructive to observe how their accu- 
racy fails for the most part just at the point where the Latin 
language ceases to run parallel with the Greek. In two re- 
markable instances, at all events, this is the case. The Latin 
language has only one past tense where the Greek has two; 
a Roman was forced to translate e\a\ W a and XeX£Xr, K a by the 
same expression " locutus sum." Accordingly, we find that 
our English translators make no difference between the aorist 
and the perfect, apparently giving the most obvious render- 
ing on each occasion, and not being guided by any grammat- 
ical principle in *he treatment of these tenses. Again, the 
Latin language has no definite article, and correspondingly,!!! 
our English Version, its presence or absence is almost wholly 
disregarded. Indeed, it would hardly be an exaggeration to 
say that, if the translators had been left to supply or omit the 
definite article in every case according to the probabilities 
of the sense or the requirements of the English, without any 
aid from the Greek, the result would have been about as ac- 
curate as it is at present. 

I am not bringing any charge against the ability of our 
translators. To demand from them a knowledge of Greek 
Grammar which their age did not possess would be to de- 
mand an impossibility. Accustomed to write and to speak 
ie l Latin, they unconsciously limited the range and capacity 
of the Greek by the measure of the classical language with 
which they were most familiarly acquainted. But our own 
more accurate knowledge may well be brought to bear to 
correct these deficiencies. Tyndale had said truly that « the 
Greek tongue agreeth more with the English than the Lat- 
in ; and it should be our endeavor to avail ourselves of this 
agreement, and so to reproduce the meaning of the ordinal 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 81 

with greater exactness. I hope to show, "before I have done, 
that it is no mere pedantic affectation which would prompt 
ns to correct these faults, but that important interests, some- 
times doctrinal, sometimes historical, are involved in their ad- 
justment. 

1. Under the head of faulty grammar, the tenses deserve to 
he considered first. And here I will begin with the defect 
on which I have already touched — the confusion of the aorist 
and \he perfect. It is not meant to assert that the aorist can 
always be rendered by an aorist and the perfect by a perfect 
in English.* IN'o two languages coincide exactly in usage, 
and allowance must be made for the difference. But still I 
think it will be seen that our version may be greatly im- 
proved in this respect without violence to the English idiom. 

Thus, in John i., 3, \u)plc avrov eye veto ovCe ev o yeyovev, 01* 
in 2 Cor. xii., 17,18, fAi) riva o)v ti — ecrraXica 7rpoc vfiac, Zl avrov 
e-Xeovexrrjva vfj.dg; rrapeKaXeaa Tirov rat avvairecrreiXa rbv doeX- 
$oV, 01* in Col. i., 16, 17, ev avru etcrladrj to. rravra . . . . ~a ttciv- 
-a Zi avrov Kal elg avrbv ticno-rat, is there any reason why the 
tenses should not have been preserved, so that the distinction 
between the historical fact and the permanent result would 
have appeared in all three cases ? Yet our translators have 
rendered eyevero, yiyovev equally by " were made" in the first 
passage, cnrearaXKa, cnreareiXa by " I sent" in the second, and 
EKriadr), tKTurrai by "were created" in the third. Again, in 
1 John iv.j 9,10,14, aireardXjcev, cnreareiXev^ cnrearaXKeV) are all 
rendered in an aoristic sense " he sent," though the appropri- 
ateness of either tense in its own context is sufficiently notice- 
able. On the other hand, in an exactly parallel case, 1 Cor. 
IX., 22, eyevofiev ro~ig aadivecriv aadevr/g 'Iva rovg aardeve\g Kepdijcrio' 
rolg iid(TLv yiyova 7ravra, where in like manner the aorist gives 
an isolated past incident, and the perfect sums up the total 
present result, the distinction of tenses is happily preserved, 

* A comparison of English with the languages of Continental Europe will 
illustrate the difference of idiom in this respect. 



82 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

"To the weak became I weak, that I might gain the weak: I 
am made all things to all men :" though " I am become" would 
have been preferable, as preserving the same verb in both 
cases. But I fear that this correct rendering must be ascribed 
to accident ; for the haphazard way in which these tenses are 
treated will appear as well from the instances already quoted 
as from such a passage as 2 Cor. vii., 13, 14 : "Therefore we 
were comforted (7rapaK£K\{)fie0a) in your comfort, yea, and ex- 
ceedingly the more joyed we (exap^^) for the joy of Titus, 
because his spirit was refreshed {avaizeTravTat) by you all. For 
if I have boasted (KEKavxvfiai) any thing to him of you, I am 
not ashamed (KaryoxvvQrjv), but as we speak (eXaXwafiev) all 
things to you in truth, even so our boasting which I made 
before Titus ([>/] ettI Tirov) is found (eyevijdrj) a truth." 

Such passages as these bring out this weakness of our trans- 
lation the more strikingly because the tenses appear in juxta- 
position. But it is elsewhere that the most serious injury is 
inflicted on the sense. I will give examples of the aorist first, 
and I hope to make it clear that more than the interests of 
exact scholarship are concerned in the accurate rendering. 

If I read St.Paul aright, the correct understanding of whole 
paragraphs depends on the retention of the aoristic sense, and 
the substitution of a perfect confuses his meaning, obliterating 
the main idea, and introducing other conceptions which are 
alien to the passages. As illustrations of this, take two pas- 
sages, Rom. vi., 1 seq. ; Col. ii., 11 seq. In the first passage, 
cnreQavojAzv (ver. 2), E^arrricrQ^fiEv (ver. 3), avvEra^-qjjLEv (ver. 4), 
(yvvEvravpojdr) (ver. 6), cnvEdavofJiEV (ver. 8), v7rr}Kovaare (ver. 17), 
e()ov\(odr)T£ Trj ZiKaiocrvvri (ver. 18), eXevOepwdepreQ cnrb rfjg afiapriag^ 
ZovXwQevteq Tu 0fw (ver. 22), EdavarwdrjTE (vii., 4), KartjpyijdrjjjLEV, 
uiroQavovTEQ (ver. 6). In the second passage, 7r£ptETjir]dr}TE (ii., 
11), crvvra^ii'TEg^ crvvrjyipBtjTE (ver. 12), avvE^cjOTrolrjfTEy (ver. 13), 
E()£iy yariaEV (ver. 15), cntEQavETE (ver. 20), <7vvY]y£p$v\T£ (iii.,l), cltte- 
QavETE (ver. 3). Now the consistency with which St.Paul uses 
the aorist in these two doctrinal passages which treat of the 
same subject (scarcely ever interposing a perfect, and then 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 



83 



only for exceptional reasons which are easily intelligible) is 
very remarkable: "Ye died, ye were buried, ye were raised, 
ye were made alive;" and the argument might be very much 
strengthened by reference to other passages where the apos- 
tle prefers the aorist in treating of the same topics .* In short, 
St.Paul regards this change — from sin to righteousness, from 
bondage to freedom, from death to life — as summed up in one 
definite act of the past ; potentially to all men in our Lord's 
Passion and Resurrection, actually to each individual man 
when he accepts Christ, is baptized into Christ. Then he is 
made righteous by being incorporated into Christ's righteous- 
ness, he dies once for all to sin, he lives henceforth forever to 
God. This is the ideal. Practically we know that the death 
to sin and the life to righteousness are inchoate, imperfect, 
gradual, meagerly realized even by the most saintly of men 
in this life ; but St.Paul sets the matter in this ideal light to 
force upon the consciences of his hearers the fact that an en- 
tire change came over them when they became Christians, 
that the knowledge and the grace then vouchsafed to them 
did not leave them where they were, that they are not, and 
can not be their former selves, and that it is a contradiction 
of their very being to sin any more. It is the definiteness, 
the absoluteness of this change, considered as a historical cri- 
sis, which forms the central idea of St. Paul's teaching, and 
which the aorist marks. We can not, therefore, afford to ob- 
scure this idea by disregarding the distinctions of grammar. 
Yet in our English Version it is a mere chance whether in 
such cases the aorist is translated as an aorist. 

The misconception which arises from this neglect of the 
aorist has vitally affected the interpretation of one passage. 
In 2 Cor. v., 14, "If one died for all, then were all dead'''' ([el] 
elg uirep tzclvtiov airiBavev, iipa ot Travrsg cnriOavov), our version sub- 

* For instance, Gal. ii., 16, 17, 18, 19, 21 ; in., 3, 27 ; v. 13, 24 (ot rov Xpiv- 
tov tt\v capita earavpojaav) ; Ephes. i. , 11, 13 ; ii., 5, 6 (<jvv£%ii)07roiti<T£v, <rvvr}- 
yeipEv, cvveicaQiGev), 13, 14 ; iv., 1 , 4, 7, 30 (i<T<ppayioQr}Ti) ; Col. i., 13 Qppv- 
oclto, nt-koTr\<jiv) ; iii., 15 ; 2 Tim. i., 7, 9 ; Tit. iii., 5 (tobtoev) : see also 1 
Pet. i., 3, 18; ii., 21 ; iii., 9. 



84 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

stitutes the state of death for the fact of dying, and thus in- 
terprets the death to be a death through sin instead of a death 
to sin. The reference in the context to the old things pass- 
ing away, and the language of St.Paul elsewhere, e.g., Rom. 
vi., 2,8; viii., 6; Col. ii., 20; iii., 3, already quoted, seem to 
show that the true sense is what would naturally be suggest- 
ed by the correct rendering of the aorist; that all men have 
participated potentially in Christ's death, have died with him 
to their former selves and to sin, and are therefore bound to 
lead a new life.* 

Not very unlike the passages which I have been consider- 
ing is Acts xix., 2, el izvev^ia ayiov eXa(3ere TnarevaavreQ, which 
our translators give " Have ye received the Holy Ghost since 
ye believed ?" It should run, " Did ye receive the Holy Ghost 
when ye believed ?" for the aorist of 7naTeveiv is used very com- 
monly, not of the continuous state of belief, but of the definite 
act of accepting the faith; e. g., Acts xi.,17; Rom. xiii.,11 ; 
1 Cor. iii., 5 ; xv., 2 ; Gal. ii., 7, etc. 

The instances which have been given hitherto more or less 
directly affect doctrine. In the two next examples, which oc- 
cur in quotations from the Old Testament, a historical con- 
nection is severed by the mistranslation of the aorist. In 
Matt, ii., 15, t£ Alyvir-ov EKaXtaa top viov /xov is rendered "Out 
of Egypt have J called my son;" but, turning to the original 
passage in Hosea (xi., 1), we find that the proper aoristic sense 
must be restored : " When Israel was a child, then I loved 
him, and called my son out of Egypt." Again, in 2 Cor. iv., 
13, iTriaTevaa lib eXaXrjaa is given "I believed, and therefore 
have I spoken " a rendering unsuited to its position in the 
LXX. of Psa. cxvi., 10 (ex v., 1) whence it is quoted. 

* The only passages which would seem to favor the other interpretation are 
1 Cor. xv., 22, Iv rip 'Ada/i 7rdvTeg diroOvricricovmv, and Eom. v., 15, et yap r<£ 
tov kvbq irapa.i7TU)]xctTi 01 ttoWoI crnkQavov. Yet, even if this interpretation 
were adopted, the aoristic sense of cnrlBavov ought to be preserved, because 
the potential death of all men in Adam corresponds to the potential life of all 
men in Christ, and is regarded as having been effected once for all in Adam's 
transgression, as in Rom. v., 15. 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 85 

Such examples as these, however, are very far from exhaust- 
ing the subject. In one passage the aorist fo-j/cao-Gat is treat- 
ed as if KeKrficrdai, and rendered " possess" instead of" acquire," 
in defiance of a distinction which it does not require the eru- 
dition of Lord Macaulay's school-boy to appreciate: Luke 
XXI., 19, iy r/7 virofiovri vjj.u>v KTi'iaaade [1. KTijaecrde] rag \pv%a.g vjjlwv, 
"In your patience possess ye your souls." Errors, however, 
occur also in this same word in 1 Thess. iv., 4, where the pres- 
ent is similarly treated, elcivai e^aa-ov vjjlwv to eavrou vkevoq kratr- 
dai kv hyiaafjiw Ka\ rifj.fi, " that every one of you should know 
how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor ;" and 
again, in Luke xviii., 12, where 6'o-a k-wjmu is translated "all 
that I possess ;" and thus it seems probable that the mistake 
first arose from a misapprehension of the meaning of KraaQcu 
rather than from a direct confusion of tenses. Yet even so 
this very misapprehension must have been owing to the ina- 
bility to see how the sense " possess" is derived from the prop- 
er force of the perfect.* 

The treatment of the perfect is almost equally faulty with 
the treatment of the aorist. Thus, in 1 Cor. xv., 4 seq., St. 
Paul lays the stress of his argument on the fact that Christ 
is risen. This perfect lyrjyspTai is repeated six times within a 
few verses (ver. 4, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20), while the aorist i)yepdrj 
is not once used. The point is not that Christ once rose from 
the grave, but that, having risen, he lives forever, as a first-fruit 
or earnest of the resurrection. Indeed, the contrast between 
the tenses on eracpr] kcu on eyriyeprai (ver. 4) throws out this 
idea in still stronger relief. In the 13th and following verses 
this conception becomes so patent on the face of St. Paul's 
language that our translators could not fail to see it, and ac- 

* In Matt, x., 9, \xf] KrrivrjaOe xpvouv, the older versions generally render 
KTT}cni<jQt. by "possess," for which the A. V. substitutes "provide," with the 
marginal alternative " get ;" and in Acts i., 18, tK-ijaaro x^piov, the oldest 
versions have " hath possessed," for which the A.V. (after the Bishops' and 
Geneva Bibles) substitutes "purchased." These facts seem to show that the 
proper distinction between KraaOai and KSKTrjaOai (which latter does not occur 
in the New Testament) was beginning to dawn upon Biblical scholars. 



86 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

cordingly from this point onward the perfect is correctly 
translated ; but the fact that in the two earliest instances 
where it occurs (ver. 4,12), ey^yeprai is treated as an aorist, 
"he rose," shows that they did not regard the rules of gram- 
mar, but were guided only by the apparent demands of the 
sense. Another example, closely allied to the last, occurs in 
Heb. vii., 14, 22. The context lays stress on the unchangeable 
priesthood: "Thou art a priest forever," "He continueth ever" 
(ver. 21, 24). Hence, in ver. 14, the writer says, 7rp6dr]\ov on 
eZ'IovSa civareraXKev 6 Kvpiog rjfiwv, and in ver. 22, Kara roaovro 
Kal Kpe'iTTOvoQ diadrjtcrjg yiyovev 'iyyvog 'Irjaovg. But these refer- 
ences to present existence are obliterated in the A. V., which 
substitutes aorists in both cases, " Our Lord sprang out of 
Juda," " was Jesus made a surety." 

These. instances have a more or less direct doctrinal bear- 
ing. The examples which shall be given next are important 
in a historical aspect. In the passage (2 Cor. xii., 2 seq.) in 
which St.Paul describes the visions vouchsafed to one "caught 
up to the third heaven," it can hardly be doubted that he re- 
fers to himself. This appears not only from the connection 
of the context, but also (in the original) from the mode of ex- 
pression, olda avOpunov, olda t6v toiovtov avQpioTrov. I have al- 
ready pointed out (p. 50) the capricious variations in the ren- 
derings of oUa, olhev, in the context of this passage. But in 
these two clauses our translators are not only capricious, but 
absolutely wrong, for they give to olda an aoristic sense which 
it can not possibly have, "Yknew a man," "Iltnew- such a 
man," thus disconnecting the actual speaker from the object 
of the vision, and suggesting to the English reader the idea 
that the apostle is speaking of some past acquaintance. 

Again, St. Matthew, in three several passages (i., 22 ; xxi., 
4; xxvi.,56), introduces a reference to prophecies in the Old 
Testament which have had their fulfillment in incidents of 
the Gospel history by the words tovto he [6kov~] yeyovev iva 
7r\r}pu)drj (or Iva TrXripuQuaiv), k.tX. In all three passages, it will 
be observed, the evangelist has the perfect yiyovev, "is come 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 57 

to pass ;" and in all three our English Version gives it as an 
aorist, " was done." N~ow it can not be urged (as it might 
with some plausibility in the case of the Apocalypse) that St. 
Matthew is careless about the use of the aorist and the per- 
fect, or that he has any special fondness for yiyovev. On the 
contrary, though the aorist (eyive-o, yeviadai. etc.) frequently 
occurs in this Gospel, there are not many examples of the 
perfect yiyovev ; and in almost every instance our version is 
faulty. In xix., 8, inr apxfjg ov yiyovev oi/rwr, the aoristic ren- 
dering, "From the beginning it- was not so," entirely misleads 
the English reader as to the sense; in xxiv., 21,o'la ov yiyovev 
air apxijc, " Such as hath not been from the beginning," would 
(I suppose) be universally accepted as an improvement on 
the present translation, " Such as teas not from the begin- 
ning;" and lastly, in xxv., 6, Kpavyi) yiyovev, the startling ef- 
fect of the sudden surprise is expressed by the change of 
tense from the aorist, " a cry is raised" and ought not to be 
neglected. When, therefore, this evangelist in three distinct 
places introduces the fulfillment of a prophecy by yiyovev, the 
fact can not be without meaning. In two of these passages 
editors sometimes attach the tov-o ce 6\ov yiyovev to the words 
of the previous speaker — of the angel in i., 22, and of our 
Lord in xxvi., 56 — in order to explain the perfect. But this 
connection is very awkward even in these two cases, and 
wholly out of the question in the remaining instance (xxi., 
4). Is not the true solution this : that these tenses preserve 
the freshness of the earliest catechetical narrative of the Gos- 
pel history, when the narrator was not so far removed from 
the fact that it was unnatural for him to say "This is come 
to pass ?" I find this hypothesis confirmed when I turn to 
the Gospel of St. John. He, too, adopts a nearly identical 
form of words on one occasion to introduce a prophecy, but' 
with a significant change of tense : xix., SQ,eyivero yap rav-a 
'iva >/ ypatyi] TrXrjpojdrj. To one writing at the close of the cen- 
tury, the events of the Lord's life would appear as a historic 
past; and so the yiyovev of the earlier evangelist is exchanged 
for the iyivero of the later. 



88 LIGHTFOOT ON A FEESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

An able American writer on the English language, criticis- 
ing a previous effort at revision, remarks somewhat satiric- 
ally that, judging from this revised version, the tenses "are 
coming to have in England a force which they have not now 
in America."* Now I have already conceded that allowance 
must be made from time to time for difference of idiom in 
rendering aorists and perfects, and I do not know to what 
passages in the revision issued by the Five Clergymen this 
criticism is intended to apply. But it is important that our 
new revisers should not defer hastily to such authority, and 
close too eagerly with a license which may be abused. The 
fact is, that our judgment in this matter is apt to be misled 
by two disturbing influences : we must be on our guard alike 
against the idola fori and against the idola species. 

First, the language of the Authorized Version is so wrought 
into the fabric of our minds by long habit, that the corre- 
sponding conception is firmly lodged there also. Thus it hap- 
pens that when a change of words is offered to us, we uncon- 
sciously apply the new words to the old conception, and are 
dissatisfied with them because they seem incongruous; and 
perhaps we conclude that English idiom is violated because 
they do not mean what we expect them to mean, not being 
prepared to make the necessary effort required to master the 
new conception involved in them. Idola fori omnium mo- 
lestissima sunt quce ex feeder e verborum et nominum se insin- 
uarunt in intellectum. 

But, secondly, the idols of our cave are scarcely less mis- 
leading than the idols of the market-place. Living in the 
middle of the nineteenth century, we can not, without an ef- 
fort, transfer ourselves to the modes of thought and of lan- 
guage which were common in the first. The mistranslation 
from which this digression started affords a good instance of 

* Marsh's Lectures on the English Language, No. xxviii., p. 633, speaking 
of the translation of St. John by the Five Clergymen. The passage is quoted 
by Bp. Ellicott (Revision of the English New Testament, p. 20), who seems 
half disposed to acquiesce in the justice of the criticism. 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 89 

this source of misapprehension. We should not ourselves say 
" This is come to pass" in referring to facts which happened 
more than eighteen centuries ago, and therefore we oblige 
the eye-witnesses to hold our own language, and say "This 
came to pass." 

From the perfect tense I pass on to Wis present. And here 
I find a still better illustration of the errors into which we 
are led by following the idola specus. In the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, the sacred writer, when speaking of the Temple serv- 
ices and the Mosaic ritual, habitually uses the present tense : 
e.g., ix., 6, 7, 9, tlaiaaiv ol lepelQ, 7rpocr(pepei virep eavrou, civpa. re 
Kal dvalai Tvpoatyipovraiy X., 1, dvaiaiQ ag Trpoatyepovaiv. Now 
I do not say that this is absolutely conclusive as showing 
that the epistle was written before the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem, but it is certainly a valuable indication of an early date, 
and should not have been obliterated. Yet our translators 
in such cases almost invariably substitute a past tense, as in 
the passages just quoted, "the priests went in," "he offered 
for himself," " were offered both gifts and sacrifices," " sacri- 
fices which they offered" And similarly, in ix., 18, they ren- 
der iyKEKaivKTrat " was dedicated," and in ix., 9, tov Kaipbv top 
heaTrjKora, " the time then present." Only in very rare in- 
stances do they allow the present to stand, and for the most 
part in such cases alone where it has no direct historical bear- 
ing. The Temple worship was a thing of the remote past to 
themselves in the seventeenth century, and they forced the 
writer of the epistle to speak their own language. 

Another and a more important example of the present 
tense is the rendering of ol awtofisvoi. In the language of the 
New Testament salvation is a thing of the past, a thing of 
the present, and a thing of the future. St. Paul says some- 
times " Ye (or we) were saved" (Rom. viii., 24), or "Ye have 
been saved" (Ephes. ii., 5, 8) ; sometimes " Ye are being saved" 
(1 Cor. xv., 2), and sometimes "Ye shall be saved" (Rom. x., 
9,13). It is important to observe this, because we are thus 
taught that aiarripia involves a moral condition which must 



90 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

have begun already, though it will receive its final accom- 
plishment hereafter. Godliness, righteousness, is life, is salva- 
tion. And it is hardly necessary to say that the divorce of 
morality and religion must be fostered and encouraged by 
failing to note this, and so laying the whole stress either on 
the past or on the future — on the first call or on the final 
change. It is therefore important that the idea of salvation 
as a rescue from sin through the knowledge of God in Christ, 
and therefore a progressive condition, a present state, should 
not be obscured ; and we can not but regret such a transla- 
tion as Acts ii., 47, " The Lord added to the Church daily such 
as should he saved, where the Greek tovq ow^ofiivovQ implies a 
different idea. In other passages, Luke xiii., 23 ; 1 Cor. i., 18 ; 
2 Cor. ii., 15 ; Rev. xxi., 24 (omitted in some texts), where ol 
(tu)£6/jlepoi occurs, the renderings " be saved, are saved" may 
perhaps be excused by the requirements of the English lan- 
guage, though these again suggest rather a complete act than 
a continuous and progressive state. 

In other cases the substitution of a past tense inflicts a 
slighter, but still a perceptible injury. It obscures the vivid- 
ness of the narrative or destroys the relation of the sentences. 
Thus, in Matt, iii., 1,13, the appearing of John the Baptist 
and of our Lord are introduced in the same language : kv toiq 
ijfjiepaig ekeivciiq irapayivETai 'luyavvqQ 6 /3a7rrtff-?/c, and tote wap- 
ayLvExai 6 'IrjaovQ. It is a misfortune that we are obliged 
to translate the expression irapayivETai by the very ordinary 
word "come ;" but the English Version, by rendering the first 
sentence "In those days came John," while it gives the sec- 
ond correctly, " Then cometh Jesus," quite unnecessarily im- 
pairs both the vigor and the parallelism of the narrative. Ex- 
actly similar to this last instance is another in St. Luke vii., 
33, 34, e\i]\v6ev yap 'lujavvrjg 6 j3a7rrt<TT)iQ . . . eXi]Xv6ev 6 vlog rov, 
avdpojTov, where again the first eX^XvOey is translated came, 
the second is come. > 

In rendering imperfect tenses, it is for the most part im- 
possible to give the full sense without encumbering the En- 



FAULTS OF GBAMMAB. 91 

glish idiom unpleasantly. But in exceptional usages, as, for 
instance, where the imperfect has the inchoate, tentative force, 
its meaning can be preserved without any such sacrifice, and 
ought not to be obliterated. Thus, in Luke i., 59, eicakovv 
avro Zaxapiay is not "They called it (the child) Zacharias," 
but "They were for calling it," "They would have called it." 
Closely allied to this is the conditional sense of the imper- 
fect, which again our English translators have rendered inad- 
equately or not at all. Thus, in Gal. iv., 20, ijdeXov ce irapeivai 
7Tpog vfidc apn is not " I desire to be present with you now," as 
our translators have it, but " I coidd have desired ;" and in 
Matt, iii.,14, 6 'lu)dppr]g ciekuXvev ah-6v is not " John forbade 
him," but " John would have hindered him." Again, in Horn, 
ix., 3, r\vyo\iy\v yap avade/jLa eivai avroc !yw cnru tov Xpurrov, the 
moral difficulty disappears when the words are correctly 
translated, not, as the English Version, "I could wish that 
myself were accursed for Christ," but " I could have wished," 
etc. ; because the imperfect itself implies that it is impossible 
to entertain such a wish, things being what they are. Again, 
in Acts XXV., 22, ejjovXofiriv teal avrbg tov avdpw-ov aKOvaai, the 
language of Agrippa is much more courteous and delicate 
than our English version represents it. Pie does not say "I 
would also hear the man myself," but " I myself also could 
have wished to hear the man," if the favor had not been too 
great to ask. Elsewhere our version is more accurate, e. g., 
Acts vii., 26, avvi]XXaaaev avrovg eig £ip{]vr)v, u would have set 
them at one again."* 

2. If the rendering of the tenses affords wide scope for im- 
provement, this is equally the case with the treatment of the 
definite article. And here again I think it will be seen that 
theology is almost as deeply concerned as scholarship in the 
correction of errors. In illustration, let me refer to the pas- 
sage which the great authority of Bentley brought into prorn- 

* Here, however, our translators appear to have read (jvvfjXacrev, so that 
their accuracy is purely accidental. 



92 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

inence, and which, has often been adduced since his time. In 
Rom. v., 15-19, there is a sustained contrast between " the one 
(6 ehy and " the many (ol ttoXXol) ;" but in the English Version 
the definite article is systematically omitted : " If, through 
the offense of one, many be dead," and so throughout the 
passage, closing with, "For as by one mart's disobedience 
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall 
many be made righteous." In place of any comment of my 
own, I will quote Bentley's words. Pleading for the correct 
rendering, he says : " By this accurate version some hurtful 
mistakes about partial redemption and absolute reprobation 
had been happily prevented. Our English readers had then 
seen, what several of the fathers saw and testified, that ol 
ttoXXoi, the many, in an antithesis to the one, are equivalent to 
Tzav-EQ, all, in ver. 12, and comprehend the whole multitude, 
the entire species of mankind, exclusive only of the one"* 
In other words, the benefits of Christ's obedience extend to 
all men potentially. It is only human self-will which places 
limits to its operation. 

Taken in connection with a previous illustration (p. 82 seq.), 
this second example from the Epistle to the Romans will en- 
able us to estimate the amount of injury which is inflicted 
on St. Paul's argument by grammatical inaccuracies. Both 
the two great lines of doctrinal teaching respecting the Re- 
demption, which run through this epistle — the one relating 
to the mode of its operation, the other to the extent of its ap- 
plication — are more or less misrepresented in our English 
Version owing to this cause. The former is obscured, as we 
saw, by a confusion of tenses, while the latter is distorted by 
a disregard of the definite article. 

This, however, is the usual manner of treating the article 
when connected with ttoXKoI and similar words; e.g., Matt. 
xxiv., 12, " The love of many shall wax cold," where the pict- 
ure in the original is much darker ; rwv noXkuv, " the many," 
the vast majority of the disciples; or again, Phil, i., 14, "And 
* Bentley's Works, iii., p. 244 (ed. Dyce). 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 93 

many of the brethren in the Lord waxing confident," where 
the error is even greater, for St.Paul distinctly writes tovq 
irXs'iovaQ, " the greater part." Similarly, also, it is neglected 
before Xonrog: e.g., Luke xxiv., 10, " And other women that 
were with them" (at Xonral avv clvtcuq) ; 1 Cor. ix., 4, " To lead 
about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles" (<bg ko.\ ol 
\oi7Tol cncoaroXoi) ; 2 Cor. xii., 13, " Ye were inferior to other 
churches" (rag Xonrag EtcicXr]<Tiag) ; in all which passages histori- 
cal facts are obscured or perverted by the neglect of the ar- 
ticle. And again, in 2 Cor. ii., 6, where // iinTi\iia r) vwo tCjv 
kXuovuv is rendered " this punishment which was inflicted of 
many" the conception of a regular judicial assembly, in which 
the penalty is decided by the vote of the majority, disappears. 

Nor is the passage quoted by Bentley the only example in 
which the broad features of St. Paul's teaching suffer from an 
indifference to the presence or the absence of the definite 
article. The distinction between rofiog and 6 vojuog is very 
commonly disregarded, and yet it is full of significance. Be- 
hind the concrete representation — the Mosaic law itself — St. 
Paul sees an imperious principle, an overwhelming presence, 
antagonistic to grace, to liberty, to spirit, and (in some as- 
pects) even to life — abstract law, which, though the Mosaic 
ordinances are its most signal and complete embodiment, 
nevertheless is not exhausted therein, but exerts its crushing 
power over the conscience in diverse manifestations. The 
one — the concrete and special — is 6 vofiog; the other — the 
abstract and universal — is vofxog. To the full understanding 
of such passages as Rom. ii., 12 seq. ; hi., 19 seq. ; iv., 13 seq. ; 
vii., 1 seq. ; Gal. in., 10 seq. ; and, indeed, to an adequate con- 
ception of the leading idea of St. Paul's doctrine of law and 
grace, this distinction is indispensable. 

The Gospels, again, will furnish illustrations of a somewhat 
different kind. To us " Christ" has become a proper name, 
and, as such, rejects the definite article. But in the Gospel 
narratives, if we except the headings or prefaces, and the 
after-comments of the evangelists themselves (e.g., Matt, i., 1 ; 



94 LIOHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

Mark i., 1 ; John i., 17), no instance of this usage can be found. 
In the body of the narratives we read only of 6 Xpiarog, the 
Christ, the Messiah, whom the Jews had long expected, and 
who might or might not be identified with the person "Je- 
sus," according to the spiritual discernment of the individual. 
XpurroQ is nowhere connected with 'Irjaovg in the Gospels with 
the exception of John xvii., 3, where it occurs in a prophetic 
declaration of our Lord, '(va yLvuxTKuxriv rbv porov aXrjdipbv Qeov 
Kai ov axearEikac 'Irjvovv Xpiarov, nor is it used without the 
definite article in more than four passages, Mark ix., 41, kv 
ovopart on Xpiarou fare; Luke ii., 11, auirrip og kariv Xpiarbg Kv- 
pwg', xxiii., 2, Xeyovra lavrbv Xpiarov ; John ix., 22, avrov 6/j.oXo- 
yfjar) Xpiarov, where the very exceptions strengthen the rule. 
The turning-point is the Resurrection : then, and not till then, 
we hear of " Jesus Christ" from the lips of contemporary 
speakers (Acts ii., 38 ; iii., 6), and from that time forward 
Christ begins to be used as a proper name, with or without 
the article. This fact points to a rule which should be strict- 
ly observed in translation. In the Gospel narratives 6 Xpia-og 
should always be rendered " the Christ," and never " Christ" 
simply. In some places our translators have observed this 
(e.g., Matt, xxvi., 63 ; Mark viii., 29), and occasionally they 
have even overdone the translation, rendering 6 Xpicr-bg by 
" that Christ," John i., 25, [vi., 69], or " the very Christ," John 
vii., 26 ; but elsewhere, under exactly the same conditions, the 
article is omitted, e.g., Matt. xvi., 16 ; xxiv.,5; Luke xxiii., 35, 
39, etc. Yet the advantage of recognizing its presence even 
in extreme cases, where at first sight it seems intrusive, would 
be great. In such an instance as that of Herod's inquiry, 
Matt, ii.,4, 7roi) 6 Xpur-dg yevvarai, "Where Christ should be 
born," probably all would acknowledge the advantage of 
substituting " the Christ ;" but would not the true significance 
of other passages, where the meaning is less obvious, be re- 
stored by the change ? Thus, in Matt, xi., 2, 6 U 'Icjarrjg clkov- 
aag kv Tuj ^eff/jnorrjpia) ret epya rov XptoroD, the evangelist's mean- 
ing is not that the Baptist heard what Jesus was doing, but 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 95 

that he was informed of one performing those works of mercy 
and power which the evangelic prophet had foretold as the 
special function of the Messiah.* I have studiously confined 
the rigid application of this rule to the historical portions of 
the Gospels, and excepted the evangelists' own prefaces and 
comments ; but even in these latter a passage is occasionally 
brought out with much greater force by understanding rov 
XpHT-dv to apply to the office rather than the individual, and 
translating it " the Christ." In the genealogy of St.Matthew, 
for instance, where the generations are divided symmetrically 
into three sets of fourteen, the evangelist seems to connect 
the last of each set with a critical epoch in the history of 
Israel ; the first reaching from the origin of the race to the 
commencement of the monarchy (ver. 6, " David the king") ; 
the second from the commencement of the monarchy to the 
captivity in Babylon ; the third and last from the captivity to 
the coming of the Messiah, the Christ (ewg rov Xpuxrov). Con- 
nected. with the title of the Messiah is that of the prophet, 
who occupied a large space in the Messianic horizon of the 
Jews — the prophet whom Moses had foretold, conceived by 
some to be the Messiah himself, by others an attendant in his 
train. In one passage only (John vii., 40) is 6 7rpop{}rr}g, so 
used, rightly given in our version. In the rest (John L, 21, 
25 ; vi., 14) its force is weakened by the exaggerated render- 
ing "that prophet ;" while in the margin of i., 21 (as if to show 
how little they understood the exigencies of the article), our 
translators have offered an alternative, "Art thou a prophet?" 
As relating to the person and office of Christ another very 
important illustration presents itself. In Col. i., 19, St. Paul 
declares that ev ai/rw evdoKrjvev irav -6 7t\i]piojxa KaroLKrjcrai^ which 
is rendered " For it pleased the Father that in him should all 

* I find that the view which is here maintained of the use of Xpiarbg and 
XpioTog is different alike from that of Middleton {Greek Article on Mark 
ix.,41), and from those of others whom he criticises. I should add that I 
wrote all these paragraphs relating to the definite article without consulting 
Middleton, and without conscious reminiscence of his views on any of the 
points discussed. 



96 LIGHTFOOT OK A FRESH REVISION OF THE K TEST. 

fullness dwell." Here an important theological term is sup- 
pressed by the omission of the article ; for to 7rX^pw^a is " the 
fullness," " the plentitude," pleroma being a recognized ex- 
pression to denote the totality of the divine powers and at- 
tributes (John i.,16; Eph. i., 23 ; iii., 19; iv., 13 ; Col.ii., 9), 
and one which afterwards became notorious in the specula- 
tive systems of the Gnostic sects. And with this fact before 
us, it is a question whether we should not treat to irX^poj/ia as 
a quasi-personality, and translate, "In Him all the Fullness 
was pleased to dwell," thus getting rid of the ellipsis which 
our translators have supplied by the Father in italics ; but, at 
all events, the article must be preserved. 

Again, more remotely connected with our Lord's office is 
another error of omission. It is true of Christianity, as it is 
true of no other religious system, that the religion is identified 
with, is absorbed in, the Person of its founder. The Gospel is 
Christ, and Christ only. This fact finds expression in many 
ways, but more especially in the application of the same lan- 
guage to the one and to the other. In most cases this iden- 
tity of terms is equally apparent in the English and in the 
Greek ; but in one instance it is obliterated by a mistransla- 
tion of the definite article. Our Lord, in St. John's Gospel, 
in answer to the disciple's question, "How can we know tJie 
way?" answers, "I am the way" (xiv.,5, 6). Corresponding- 
to this, we ought to find that in no less than four places in 
the Acts of the Apostles the Gospel is called " the way" ab- 
solutely: ix.,2,"If he found any that w T ere of the way (eav 
tivclq evprj Tfjc ohov ovtclq) ;" xix., 9, "Divers believed not, but 
spake evil of the way;" xix., 23, "There arose no small stir 
about the way ;" xxiv., 22, "Having more perfect knowledge 
of the way;" but in all these passages the fact disappears in 
the En glish Version, which varies the rendering between "this 
way" and " that way," but never once translates rqv 6d6v, "the 
way." 

But more especially are these omissions of the article fre- 
quent in those passages which relate to the second advent 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 97 

and its accompanying terrors or glories. The imagery of 
this great crisis was definitely conceived, and, as such, the 
apostles refer to it. In the Epistles to the Thessalonians 
more especially, St. Paul mentions having repeatedly dwelt 
on these topics to his converts: "Remember ye not that 
when I was yet with you I told you these things ?" 2 Thess. 
ii.,5. Accordingly, he appeals to incidents connected with 
the second advent as known facts: lav firj e\dr} >/ a-Koa-aaia 

TzpCJrov Kal a-OKokvtyQri u uvdpoj-og ~rjg a/iapriag [v. 1. arofjiiac], 

" Except the falling away come first and the man of sin be re- 
vealed," where our version makes the apostle say " a falling 
away," " that man of sin," just as a little lower down it trans- 
lates 6 a vofxoQ " that wicked" instead of " the lawless one." Sim- 
ilarly in the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi.,10) it is said of 
Abraham in the original that "He looked for the city which 
hath the foundations {e^ece^eto t))v rovg dsfieXiovg typvaav -6- 
Xij/)." A definite image here rises before the sacred writer's 
mind of the new Jerusalem such as it is described in the 
Apocalypse, "The wall of the city had twelve foundations, 
and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb 
(xxi.,14);" "The foundations of the wall of the city were 
garnished with all manner of precious stones, etc." (xxi.,19 
seq.).* But in our version the words are robbed of their 
meaning, and Abraham is made to look for " a city which 
hath foundations" — a senseless expression, for no city is with- 
out them. Again, in the Apocalypse, the definite article is 
more than once disregarded under similar circumstances. 
Take, for instance, vii., 12, 14, "What are these which are ar- 
rayed in white robes (rag (TroXag rag XevKag) ?" with the reply, 
"These are they which came out of great tribulation (ek rfje 
OXlxLecog rijg fiEyaXeg) ;" xvii., 1, " That sitteth on many icaters" 
(eirl tCjv vZa-wv rwv -oXXHv, for this was the reading in their 
text). And another instance, not very dissimilar, occurs in 
the Gospels. The same expression is used six times in St. 
Matthew (viii., 12; xiii.,42,50; xxii.,13; xxiv.,51; xxv., 30), 
* See Abp. Trench's Authorized Version, p. 70, 71. 



98 LIGHTFOOT ON A FEESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

and once in St. Luke (xiii., 28), to describe the despair and 
misery of the condemned; eke! larai 6 tcXavdpiog ko.1 6 fipvypdg 
ru>y olovTuv, where the rendering should be corrected into 
" There shall be the wailing and the gnashing of teeth." 

The last instance which I shall take connected with this 
group of facts and ideas relating to the end of the world is 
more subtle, but not, on that account, less important. I refer 
to the peculiar sense of f] Spyfj, as occurring in a passage which 
has been variously explained, but which seems to admit only 
of one probable interpretation, Rom. xii., 19, p) eavrovg ekSl- 
Kovpreg, aya-Kryroi, aXXa dore tottov rp opyrj' yiypcnrrai yap 'Ejuot ek- 
dkrjffig, eyio avTcnroduano, Xeyei Kvpiog. With this compare Rom. 
v., 9, (ruSEGOfieda $i avrou aw 6 rrjg opyrjg, which is rendered "We 
shall be saved from wrath through him," and more especial- 
ly 1 Thess. ii., 16, E(j>daaEV (e^Qclkev) Se ett avrovg ij Spy I] Elg riXog, 
where the definite article is correctly reproduced in our ver- 
sion, " For the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost." 
From these passages it appears that i) 007*7, "the wrath," used 
absolutely, signifies the divine retribution ; and the force of 
St. Paul's injunction in Rom. xii., 19, Sore tottov rrj dpyrf is this : 
"Do not avenge yourselves: do not anticipate the divine 
retribution ; do not thrust yourselves into God's place, but 
leave room for his judgments" — a sense which the English 
rendering " rather give place unto wrath" does not suggest, 
and probably was not intended to represent. In the same 
way, 7-o diX-qfia is the divine will (Rom.ii., 18, ytywoxae to diXrj- 
/xa),*and to ovojia the divine name (Phil, ii., 9, to bvofia to Wo 

* This word 9iXr]pa came to be so appropriated to the divine will that it is 
sometimes used in this sense even without the definite article; e. g.,Ignat., 
Horn., 1, idvirsp OeXrjpa y tov Kara^KoOfjvai pe (the correct text) ; JEphes., 20, 
lav pe Ka~a%LW(Ty 'Ir)aovg XpiGTog Iv Ty Trpoczvxy vpuiv rat OkXrjpa y ; Smyrn., 
l,vlbv Qeov kcito. d'i.Xr)}xa mi dvvapiv [9fou] (where Qeov is doubtful). 

These passages point to the true interpretation of 1 Cor. xvi., 12, ovk rjv 
QlXtpa 'Iva vvv tXQy, IXevatTai Ss orav EvKaipr)<ry, which is (I believe) univers- 
ally interpreted as in our English Version, "his will was not to come, "but 
which ought to be explained, "It was not God's will that he should come." 

They also indicate, as I believe, the true reading in Rom. xv., 32, 'iva ev 
X<*pa *X6(t) Trpbg vpdg did OeXrjpaTog, where various additions appear in the 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 99 

way ovofia). Iii the last passage, however, it is unfair to charge 
our translators with an inaccurate rendering, " gave him a 
name," for their incorrect text omitted the article ; but to 
ovofia is the true reading, and it is superfluous to remark how 
much is gained thereby. 

In other passages, where no doctrinal considerations are 
involved, a historical incident is misrepresented or the mean- 
ing of a passage is perverted by the neglect or the mistrans- 
lation of the article. Thus, in two several passages, St. Paul's 
euphemism of to 7rpdyfxa, when speaking of sins of the flesh, 
is effaced, and he is made to say something else : in 1 Thess. 
iv., 6, " That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in 
any matter" {kv no 7rpay^an), where the sin of dishonest gain 
is substituted for the sin of unbridled sensuality by the mis- 
translation ; and in 2 Cor. vii., 11, "Ye have approved your- 
selves to be clear in this matter. (iv r<p 7rpay^ar«)," where, 
though the perversion is much less considerable, a slightly 
different turn is given to the apostle's meaning by substitut- 
ing " this" for " the." Again, in 1 Cor. v., 9, w T here St. Paul is 
made to say, " I wrote to you in an epistle" (instead of " my 
epistle" or " letter"), the mistranslation of kv ~r\ EirurroXij has 
an important bearing on the interpretation of his allusion. 
Again, in 2 Cor. xii., 18, "I desired Titus, and with him I sent 
a brother (rov a<fe\0dv)," the error adds to the difficulty in 
discerning the movements of St. Paul's delegates previous to 
the writing of the letter. And in such renderings as John 
iii., 10, crv el u cu<)a<jxa\oe rov 'Iopcu/A ; "Art thou a master of 
Israel ?" and Rev. iii., 1 7„ o-v el 6 raXaiTriopog kcu [6] kXeeivog, "Thou 
art wretched and miserable," though there is no actual mis- 
leading, the passages lose half their force by the omission. 

In another class of passages some fact of geography or 
archaeology lurks under the definite article, such as could 
proceed only from the pen of an eye-witness, or at least of 
one intimately acquainted with the circumstances. In al- 

MSS. : Oeov in AC, Kvpiov 'Irjcov in B,'lrjcrov XpivTov in X, Xpiarov 'Iijtrov in 
DFG, but where QkXrjfia appears to be used absolutely. 



100 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF TEE K TEST. 

most every instance of this kind the article is neglected in 
our version, though it is obviously important at a time when 
the evidences of Christianity are so narrowly scanned that 
these more minute traits of special knowledge should be kept 
in mind. Thus, for instance, in John xii., 13, "They took 
branches of palm-trees," the original has to. /3cua twv Qoivikwv, 
" the branches of the palm-trees" — the trees with which the 
evangelist himself was so familiar, which clothed the eastern 
slopes of the Mount of Olives, and gave its name to the vil- 
lage of Bethany, "the house of dates." Thus, again, in the 
Acts (ix., 35), the words translated "Lydda and Saron" are 
Avhha Kal tov Sapwrn, " Lydda and the Sharon,"* the former 
being the town, the latter the district in the neighborhood, 
and therefore having the definite article in this, the only pas- 
sage in which it occurs in the New Testament, as it always 
has in the Old Testament, Hash- sharon, "the Sharon," the 
woody plain, just as we talk of "the weald," "the downs," 
etc.f Again, there is mention of " the pinnacle (to -n-repvywy) 
of the Temple" in the record of the temptation (Matt, iv., 5 ; 
Luke iv., 9) — the same expression likewise being used by the 
Jewish Christian historian Hegesippus in the second century, 
when describing the martyrdom of James, the Lord's brother, 
who is thrown down from " the 7r-epvytov ;"J so that (whatev- 
er may be the exact meaning of the word translated " pinna- 
cle") some one definite place is meant, and the impression 
conveyed to the English reader by " a pinnacle" is radically 

* The reading dadpcova or doadpwva, which is found in some few second- 
rate authorities, is a reproduction of the Hebrew, founded perhaps on the 
note of Origen (?), tiviq de aaadpcova <paciv, ov\i crapwva, owep icpuTTov (see 
Tisch., Nov. Test. Grcec, ed. 8, ii., p. 80). In direct contrast to this uncon- 
scious reduplication of the article stands the reading of X (corrected, however, 
by a later hand), which omits the tov, from not understanding the presence 
of the article. 

t The illustration is Mr. Grove's, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, s. v. 
Saron. 

% InEuseb.,.H r .i?.,ii.,23, ottjOi ovv lid to iTTspvyiov tov Upov . . . toTnoav 
ovv oi Trpoeipn/uevoi ypafLfxaTsig Kal Qapivaioi tov 'Idicu)(3ov tiri to TTTtpvytov 
tov vaov. 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 101 

wrong. Again, in the history of the cleansing of the Tem- 
ple, the reference to the seats of them that sold " the doves" 
(rag 7rEpicrr£pag) in two evangelists (Matt, xxi.,12; Mark xi., 
15) indicates the pen of a narrator who was accustomed to 
the sio-ht of the doves which might be purchased within the 
sacred precincts by worshipers intending to offer the purifi- 
catory offerings enjoined by the Mosaic law (Luke ii., 24). In 
like manner, " the bushel" and " the candlestick" in the Ser- 
mon on the Mount (Matt, v., 15 ; comp. Mark iv., 21 ; Luke 
xi., 33) point to the simple and indispensable furniture in ev 
ery homely Jewish household. And elsewhere casual allu 
sions to "the cross-way" (Mark xi., 4), "the steep" (Mark v. 
13, "a steep place," A.V), "the synagogue" or "our syna 
gogue" (Luke vii., 5, "He hath built us a synagogue," A.V.*) 
and the like — which are not unfrequent — all have their value 
and ought not to be obscured. 

But there are two remarkable instances of the persistent 
presence of the definite article — both connected with the Lake 
of Galilee — which deserve special attention, but which, nev- 
ertheless, do not appear at all to the English reader. 

Most students of the New Testament have had their atten- 
tion called to the fact that our Lord, before delivering the 
discourse which we call " the Sermon on the Mount," is re- 
corded to have gone up, not " into a mountain," but " into the 
mountain" (to opog), Matt, v., 1 ;f and they have been taught 

* In Acts xvii.,1, also, where the A.V. has " Thessalonica, where w r as a 
synagogue of the Jews," our translators certainly read oirov yv j) avvaywyr], 
though the article must be omitted in the Greek, if a strong combination of 
the oldest authorities is to have weight. 

t Dean Stanley (Sinai and Palestine, p. 361), supporting the traditional 
site of the "Mount of Beatitudes," writes, " None of the other mountains in 
the neighborhood could answer equally well to this description, inasmuch as 
they are merged into the uniform barrier of hills round the lake, whereas this 
stands separate — 'the mountain,' which alone could lay claim to a distinct 
name, with the one exception of Tabor, which is too distant to answer the re- 
quirement." If the view which I have taken in the text be correct, this "uni- 
form barrier of hills" would itself be ro opog : at all events, the fact that to 
opog is the common expression in the evangelists shows that the definite ar- 
ticle does not distinguish the locality of the Sermon on the Mount from those 



102 LIQHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

to observe also that St.Luke (vi., 17), in describing the locali- 
ty where a discourse very similar to St. Matthew's Sermon on 
the Mount is held, says, " He came down with them and 
stood," not (as our English Version makes him say) " in the 
plain" (as if kv ru 7rf^'w), but "on a level place" (sttl tottov tte- 
clvov), where the very expression suggests that the spot was 
situated in the midst of a hilly country. Thus, by respecting 
the. presence of the article in the one evangelist and its ab- 
sence in the other, the two accounts are so far brought into 
accordance that the description of the localities, at all events, 
offers no impediment to our identifying the discourses. 

But it is important to observe in addition that whenever 
the evangelists speak of incidents occurring above the shores 
of the Lake of Galilee, they invariably use to opog,* and never 
opog or tci oprj, either of which, at first sight, would have seemed 
more natural. The probable explanation of this fact is, that 
t6 opog stands for the mountain district — the hills as opposed 
to the level shores — more especially as the corresponding He- 
brew "inM is frequently so used, and in such cases is trans- 
lated to opog in the LXX. : e. g., " the mountain of Judah," 
" the mountain of Ephraim," Josh, xvii., 16 ; xix., 50 ; xx., 7, 
etc.f But, whatever may be the explanation, the article ought 
to be retained throughout. 

Only less persistent]; is the presence of the article in " the 

of several other incidents in this neighborhood, though possibly the independ- 
ent reasons in favor of the traditional site may be sufficient without this aid. 

* The only exceptions, I believe, to the insertion of the definite article are 
in the cases of the temptation (Matt, iv., 8 [Luke iv., 5]) and of the transfig- 
uration (Matt. xvii. , 1 ; Mark ix. , 2), in all which passages the expression is 
tig opog viprjXbv [\iav]. 

t It is no objection to this interpretation that St.Luke twice uses the more 
classical expression r) opeivrj in speaking of the hill-country of Judasa: i., 39, 
G5. Wherever he treads on the same ground with St. Matthew and St. Mark, 
he has to opog. The portion of his narrative in which r) opeivr) occurs is de- 
rived from some Avholly independent source. 

t The common text, however, inserts the article in a few passages where it 
is absent from one or more of the best MSS. (e. g., Matt, viii., 23 ; ix., 1 ; 
xiii., 2 ; xiv., 22 ; Mark iv., 1 ; vi., 30, 45). In Matt, xiv., 13, Iv TrXoup is 
read by all the ancient authorities which have the words at all. In cases 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 



103 



ship" (to ttXoIop) in connection with the navigation of the Sea 
of Galilee. Whatever may be the significance of this fact — 
whether it simply bears testimony to the vividness with 
which each scene in succession presented- itself to the first 
narrator or narrators, or whether some one well-known boat 
was intended (as the narrative of John vi., 22 seq. might sug- 
gest) — the article ought to have been preserved in the En- 
glish Version ; whereas in this case, as in the last, the trans- 
lators have been guided, not by grammar, but by " common 
sense," for the most part translating to 6pog, to irXolov, on each 
occasion where they appear first in connection with a fresh 
incident by " a mountain," " a ship," and afterwards by " the 
mountain," " the ship." 

Yet, on the other hand, where this phenomenon appears in 
the original Greek, that is, where an object is indefinite when 
first introduced and becomes definite after its first mention, 
our translators have frequently disregarded this "common- 
sense" rule, and departed from the Greek. Thus, in the ac- 
count of St.Peter's three denials in Mark xiv., 69, we are told 
that "one of the maid-servants (jila twp 7reu(WuDr) of the high- 
priest" questioned him and elicited his first denial ; then, y 
izathiaKr} Idovo-a aWov ttclKlv i\pL,aTo Xiyeiy^The maid-servant, see- 
ing him again, began to say ;" but our translators in the sec- 
ond passage render it " a maid-servant," thus making two 
distinct persons. The object was doubtless to bring the nar- 
rative into strict conformity with Matt, xxvi.,69, 11 (p.ia 7rcu- 
ZioKri . . . aXXrj) ; but, though there might seem to be an im- 
mediate gain here, this disregard of grammar is really a hin- 
derance to any satisfactory solution, where an exact agree- 
ment in details is unimportant, and where strict harmony, if 
attainable, must depend on the tumultuous character of the 
scene, in which more than one interrogator would speak at 
the same time.* Our translators, however, were at fault, not 

where the MSS. differ it is not easy to see whether or not the omission of the 
article was a. scribe's correction. Generally it may be said that the article 
with ttXoIov is more persistent in the other evangelists than in St. Matthew. 
* See the solution in Westcott's Introduction to the Gospels, p. 280. 



104 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

through any want of honesty, but from their imperfect knowl- 
edge of grammar, for they repeatedly err in the same way 
where no purpose is served; e.g.,Mark ii., 15,16," Many pub- 
licans and sinners {koXKoI teXujvcli Kal ajiaprcoXoi) sat also to- 
gether with Jesus . . . and when the scribes and Pharisees 
saw him eat with publicans and sinners (fxera rwv reXuvtiv Kal 
ajiaprh)\u)v) . . . How is it that he eateth and drinketh with 
publicans and sinners (juera rwv tzKuvCjv Kal a/j-apTioXtiv) ?'.'.... 
1 J6hn v., 6, "This is he that came by water and blood (di vda- 
rog Kal alfiaroo), even Jesus Christ ; not by water (iv rS vSari) 
only, but by water (kv rw v^cltl) and blood (rw cu/xan) ;" Rev. 
xi., 9, 11, "Shall see their dead bodies three days and a half 
(rifxepag rpelg Kal tj/jlhtv) . . . And after three days and a half 
(fiera rag TfieiQ Vfxepag Kal rjjjLiav), etc." Omissions of this class 
are very numerous, 

The error of inserting the article where it is absent is less 
frequent than that of omitting it where it is present, but not 
less injurious to the sense. Thus, in 1 Tim. iii.,11, ywdlKag 
uaavTug (re/jivag would hardly have been rendered " even so 
must their wiveshe grave" if the theory of the definite article 
had been understood ; for our translators would have seen 
that the reference is to ywalKag ZiaKovovg, "women-deacons" or 
" deaconesses," and not to the wives of the deacons.* Again, 
in John iv., 27, edavfxa£ov on fiera yvvaiKog eXctXei, the English 
Version, " They marveled that he talked with the woman," 
implies that the disciples knew her shameful history — a high- 
ly improbable supposition, since she is obviously a stranger 
whose character our Lord reads through his divine intuition 
alone ; whereas the true rendering, " He talked with a worn- 

* The office of deaconess is mentioned only in one other passage in the New 
Testament (Rom. xvi., 1), and there also it is obliterated in the English Ver- 
sion by the substitution of the vague expression ' ' which is a servant" for the 
more definite ovaav Si&kovov. If the testimony borne in these two passages 
to a ministry of women in the apostolic times had not been thus blotted out 
of our English Bibles, attention would probably have been directed to the sub- 
ject at an earlier date, and our English Church would not have remained so 
long maimed in one of her hands. 



FA UL TS OF GRAMMAR. ! 05 

an," which indeed alone explains the emphatic position of yv- 
vclikoq, points to their surprise that he should break through 
the conventional restraints imposed by rabbinical authority 
and be seen speaking to one of the other sex in public* 
Again, in Luke vi., 16, bg [kcu\ eyivero TtpoloTriQ ought not to be 
translated " which also was the traitor," because the subse- 
quent history of Judas is not assumed to be known to St. 
Luke's readers, but " who also became a traitor." Again, it is 
important for geographical reasons that in Acts viii.,5, Philip 
should not be represented as going down " to the city of Sa- 
maria" (elg ttoXlv rfjg Zafiapeiag), if the reading w T hich our trans- 
lators had before them be correct,! because the rendering may 
lead to a wrong identification of the place. And, lastly, Kara 
eopTfji', which means simply " at festival-time," should not be 
translated "at the feast" (Luke xxiii., 17), still less " at that 
feast" (Matt, xxvii., 15; Mark xv., 6), because these render- 
ings seem to limit the custom to the feast of the Passover — 
a limitation which is not implied in the original expression, 
and certainly is not required by the parallel passage in St. 
John (xviii., 39). Happily, in another passage (John v., 1, 
fxera ravra i]v koprrj -ibv 'IovccuW), which is important in its bear- 
ing on the chronology of our Lord's life, our translators have 
respected the omission of the article before eopri] ; but that 
their accuracy in this instance was purely accidental appears 
from the fact that a chapter later (vi., 4), to Traced >/ kopn) r&v 
'lovlaiuv is rendered " the Passover, a feast of the Jews." 

But if, after the examples already given, any doubt could 
still remain that the theory of the definite article was wholly 
unknown to our translators, the following passages, in which 
almost every conceivable rule is broken, must be regarded as 
conclusive : Matt, iii., 4, avrog %e 6 'Iwai^c ux ev T ° Mvfia, "And 
the same John had his raiment" (where the true rendering, 
" But John himself," involves an antithesis of the prophetic 

* A rabbinical precept was, "Let no one talk with a woman in the street, 
no, not with his own wife :" see Lightfoot's Works, ii., p. 543. 
f sig r))v ttoXiv, however, ought almost certainly to be read. 



1 06 LIGHTFOOT OK A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

announcement and the actual appearance of the Baptist) ; 
John iv., 37, h tovtw 6 Xoyog early 6 aX-qQivog, "Herein is that 
saying true;" ib., v., 44, rr)v $6£av ty\v itaph rov uovov Seod, "The 
honor that cometh from God only f Acts xi., IV, rfjy 'iarjy Ioj- 
peav kciOKEV avroig 6 Qeog wg kcu i]u~iv -KiarEvaaaiv ettI rov Kvpiov, 
" God gave them the like gift as he did unto us who believed 
on the Lord;" 1 Cor. viii., 10,11, // avvEwrjaig avrov aaQevovg ov- 
rog . . . . TVTZTOVTeg avruv ty\v ovvE'ihr\<jiv aaQevovoav, "The con- 
science of him that is weak . . . wound their iceak conscience;" 
2 Cor. viii., 19, npog rrjy avrov rov Kvplov Z6Z,av, "To the glory 
of the same Lord ;" 1 Tim. vi., 2, iriaroi eiaiv Kal ayaTrrjrol ol rfjs 
Evspyearlag avriXaujSapojjievoi, " They are faithful and beloved, 
partakers of the benefit;" ib., vi., 5, vouitfvrwv Tropia/ioy elvcu 
rrju evaipeiav, " Supposing that gain is godliness;" 2 Tim. ii., 
19, 6 usptoi arrepebg dejj.i\iog rov Qeov 'iarr]KEV, "Nevertheless, the 
foundation of God standeth sure;" Heb. vi.,8, k^ipovaa he 
atcavQag Kal rpifjokovg aloKijiog, " But that which beareth thorns 
and briers is rejected;" ib.,\\.,\Q>,TTaar)g avroig avriXoyiag rripag 
elg j3ej3aloj(TLv 6 opicog, "An oath for confirmation is to them an 
end of all strife ;" ib., ix., 1, to te ayiov kovjjlikov, "And a worldly 
sanctuary ;" ib., X., 1, raig avralg Qvaiaig ag Trpovtyipovmv, " With 
those sacrifices which they offered;" Rev. xix., 9, ov-oi ol \6yoi 
aXrjdivoi elm rod Qeov, " These are the true sayings of God." 

There is, however, one passage in. which this fault is com- 
mitted, and on which it may be worth while to dwell at 
greater length, because it does not appear to have been prop- 
erly understood. In John v., 35, the words Uelvog 7}v 6 Xvx^og 
6 KcuouEvog mi tyaipwv, in which our Lord describes the Bap- 
tist, are translated in our version, " He was a burning and a 
shining light." Thus rendered, the expression appears as in- 
tended simply to glorify John. But this is not the sense 
which the context requires, and it is only attained by a fla- 
grant disregard of the articles. Commentators have correctly 
pointed out that John is here called 6 Xvx^og, " the lamp ;" he 
was not to 0oe, "the light" (i., 8);* for Christ himself, and 

* Here again (i., 8) much is lost in the English Version by rendering ovk 
y\v eKtlvog to 0wf, " He was not that light." 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 107 

Christ only, is "the light" (i., 9; iii., 19; ix., 5, etc.). Thus 
the rendering of 6 Xv^voq is vitally wrong, as probably few 
would deny. But it has not been perceived how much the 
contrast between the Baptist and the Savior is strengthened 
by a proper appreciation of the remaining words 6 tcaiofxevog 
Kal cpaiviov. The word tcaiEiv is " to burn, to kindle," as in Matt. 
v., 15, ovU Kaiovffiv Xvx^ov, " Neither do men light a candle:" 
so, too, Luke xii., 35, oi Xv^yoi Kaiofievoi, Rev. iv., 5 ; viii., 10. 
Thus it implies that the light is not inherent, but borrowed; 
and the force of the expression will be, " He is the lamp that 
is kindled, and so shineth." Christ himself is the centre and 
source of light; the Baptist has no light of his own, but draws 
all his illumination from this greater one. He is only as the 
light of the candle, for whose rays, indeed, men are grateful, 
but which is pale, flickering, transitory, compared with the 
glories of the eternal flame from which itself is kindled. 

3. After the tenses and the definite article, the prepositions 
deserve to be considered ; for here, also, there is much room 
for improvement. 

Of these, lih holds the first place in importance; yet, in 
dealing with this preposition, we are met with a difficulty. 
The misunderstandings which arise in the mind of an English 
reader are due in most passages rather to the archaisms than 
to the errors of our translators ; and archaisms are very in- 
tractable. Where, in common language, we now say "by" 
and " through" (i. e., " by means of") respectively, our trans- 
lators, following the diction of their age, generally use " of" 
and " by" respectively — " of" denoting the agent (v7rd), and 
"by" the instrument or means (&a). This, however, is not 
universally the case ; but v-n-6 is sometimes translated " by" 
(e.g., Luke ii., 18), and cut sometimes "through" (e.g., John 
i.,7). Such exceptions seem to show that the language was 
already in a state of transition ; and this supposition is con- 
firmed by observing that in the first passage Tyndale and the 
earlier versions render ribv XaXrjdei'-iov av-olg v-6 tCjv Troifiepcoi', 



108 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

"those things which were told them of the shepherds" — a ren- 
dering still retained even in the Bishops' and Geneva Bibles, 
and first altered apparently by King James's revisers. 

From these archaisms great ambiguity arises. When we 
hear "it was said o/him," we understand at once "about or 
concerning him," but this is not the meaning which this prep- 
osition bears in our New Testament. And again, when we 
read " it was sent by me," we understand " I sent it," but 
neither a^ain is this the meaning intended. In the modern 
language "by" represents the sender (Wo), whereas in the old 
it denotes the bearer (cm) of the letter or parcel. We do not 
venture to use " %," meaning the intermediate agency or in- 
strument, except in cases where the form or the matter of the 
sentence shows distinctly that the primary agent is not in- 
tended, so that no confusion is possible, as " I sent it by him," 
"I was informed by telegraph." Otherwise misunderstand- 
ing is inevitable. Thus, in Acts xii.,9, "He wist not that it 
was true which was done by the angel" (to yivo/xevov cia rov 
ayyeXov), or in Acts ii., 43, " Many words and signs were done 
by the apostles" (hia rwv curoff-oXiov eyivero), no English reader 
would suspect that the angel and the apostles respectively 
are represented as the doers only in the sense in which a 
chisel may be said to carve a piece of wood, as instruments 
in the hands of an initiative power. In the same way, Acts ii., 
23, " Ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and 
slain" is, I fancy, wholly misunderstood ; nor, indeed, would 
it be easy, without a knowledge of the Greek, c\a x eL P^ v 
avofiwv ;* to discover that by the " wicked hands," or rather 
" lawless hands," is meant the instrumentality of the a^o/zot, 
the heathen Romans, whom the Jews addressed by St. Peter 
had used as their tools to compass our Lord's death. And 
again, such renderings as Gal. iii.,19, "ordained by angels" 
(c^arayac cY ayyeXwv), and Ephes. iii.,10, " might be known by 

* I have taken x H P^ v as tne reading which our translators had before them. 
But the correct text is unquestionably Sta %ap6c dv6/j.o)v, "by the hand of 
lawless men," which brings out the sense still more clearly. 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 109 

the Church {yvupiaQri lih rfjg axX^/ac, i. e., might be made 
known through the Church) the manifold wisdom of God," 
are quite misleading. It was not, however, for the sake of 
such isolated examples as these that I entered upon this dis- 
cussion. There are two very important classes of passages, 
in which' the distinction between vtto (a?™) and eta is very im- 
portant, and in which, therefore, this ambiguity is much to be 
regretted. 

The first of these has reference to Inspiration. Wherever 
the sacred writers have occasion to quote or to refer to the 
Old Testament, they invariably a]i>ply the preposition &a, as 
denoting instrumentality, to the lawgiver, or the prophet, or 
the psalmist, while they reserve ko, as signifying the primary 
motive agency, to God himself. This rule is, I believe, uni- 
versal. Some few exceptions, it is true, occur in the received 
text, but all these vanish when the readings of the older au- 
thorities are adopted ;* and this very fact is significant, be- 
cause it points to a contrast between the persistent idea of 
the sacred writers themselves and the comparative indiffer- 
ence of their later transcribers. Sometimes lih occurs alone, 
e. g., Matt, xxi., 4, to prjdev lih tov 7rpo<p)]TOv ; xxiv., 15, to prjdsv 
lih AavuiX, etc. ; sometimes in close connection with vtto, e. g., 
Matt, i., 22, to prjdev biro Kvpiov lih tov 7rpo(pi]TOv (comp. ii., 15). 
It is used, moreover, not only when the word is mentioned as 
spoken, but also when it is mentioned as icritten; e. g., Matt, 
ii., 5, ovTio yap yiypcnrTai lih tov 7rpo(pi]TOv ; Luke xviii., 31, 7rarra 
ra yeypafu/jieya lih tCjv 7rpo(f)r)Tu>v. Yet this significant fact is 
wholly lost to the English reader. 

* In Matt, ii., 1 7; iii.,3,the readings of the received text are vtto 'Isps/jiiov, 
vwb 'Eaaiov respectively, but all the best critical editions read eta in both 
places, following the preponderance of ancient authority. In Matt, xxvii., 
35 ; Mark xiii., 14, the clauses containing vtto in this connection are inter- 
polations, and are struck out in the best editions. 

In all these four passages our A.V. has "by," though the translators had 
vrrb in their text, and (following their ordinary practice) should have rendered 
it "of." Tyndale, who led the w r ay, probably having no distinct grammatical 
conception of the difference of vtto and ctd, followed his theological instinct 
herein, and thus extracted the right sense out of the false reading. 



1 1 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

The other class of passages has a still more important the- 
ological bearing, having reference to the Person of Christ. The 
preposition, it is well known, which is especially applied to 
the Office of the Divine Word, is <ka ; e. g., John i., 3, 10, rravra 
Si avrov kyivi.ro ... 6 Koajuog Ci avrov eyivero; 1 Cor. viii., 6, elg 
Kvpiog 'IrivovQ Xpicrrog Si ov ra rcavra Kcti y]ji€ig Si avrov] Col. i., 
16, ra iravra Si avrov Kal elg avrov EKricrraiy Heb. i., 2, Si ov Kal 
eirolrjffEV rovg altivag; ii., 10, Si ov ra Travra Kal Si ov ra iravra. 
In all such passages the ambiguous " by" is a serious obsta- 
cle to the understanding of the English reader. In the M- 
cene Creed itself, the expression "By whom (oi ov) all things 
were made," even when it is seen that the relative refers not 
to the Father, but to the Son (and the accidental circumstance 
that the Father is mentioned just before misleads many per- 
sons on this point), yet fails to suggest any idea different 
from the other expression in the Creed, " Maker of heaven 
and earth," which had before been applied to the Father. 
The perplexity and confusion are still further increased by 
the indistinct rendering, " God of God, Light of Light," etc., 
for Qeoq Ik Qeov, (j>&g ek tytirog, K.r.X. — words which in them- 
selves represent the doctrine of God the Word as taught by 
St. John, but whose meaning is veiled by the English prepo- 
sition of Thus the Nicene doctrine is obscured in the Ni- 
cene formula itself as represented to the English ear, and the 
prejudice against it, which is necessarily excited by misun- 
derstanding, ensues. The same misconception must attend 
the corresponding passages in the New Testament ; e. g., John 
i., 3, 10, "All things were made by him," "The world was 
made by him." In this case it is much easier to point out 
the defect than to supply the remedy ; but surely the English 
Version in this context is capricious in rendering hi avrov in 
the two passages already quoted " by him," and yet in an in- 
termediate verse (1) translating iravreg marevoioviv It avrov, 
" all men through him might believe," and then again return- 
ing to by in ver. IV, 6 vojiog Sia Mojvaiwg edodt), f] x a p l £ Ka ^ L V &\fi- 
deia ha'lrjffov Xpurrov eylvero, " The law was given by Moses, 



FA TJL TS OF GRAMMAR. m 

but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." If prescription 
is too powerful to admit the rendering "through" for eta 
throughout the passage, some degree of consistency, at least, 
might be attained, so that 7ria-evau)(7iu cV avrov and eta Mojvgewq 
lUdr) should be translated the same way. 

But, though in the renderings of eta with the genitive w T e 
are confronted by archaisms rather than by errors, and it 
might be difficult, and perhaps not advisable, in many cases, 
to meddle with them, the same apology and the same impedi- 
ment do not apply to this preposition as used with the accu- 
sative. Here our translators are absolutely wrong, and a cor- 
rection is imperative. Though they do not ever (so far as I 
have noticed) translate act with a genitive as though it had 
an accusative, they are frequently guilty of the converse er- 
ror, and render it with an accusative as though it had a geni- 
tive. Thus Matt, xv., 3, 6, "Why do ye transgress the com- 
mandment of God? ... ye have made the commandment 
of none effect by your tradition (eta rtjv icapaZoaiv ipj'," i.e., 
" for the sake of your tradition," or as it is expressed in the 
parallel passage, Mark vii., 9, 'iva rrjv Trapacoaiv v/j.u>v ric]pi]<jr\TE 
[a-iiarj-E]) ; John xv., 3, "Xow ye are clean through the word 
(£ta tov \6yov) ;" Rom. ii., 24, "The name of God is blasphemed 
among the Gentiles through you (liv/iag) ;" 2 Cor.iv.,15,"That 
the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many 
redound to the glory of God (tW ?/ x^P LQ nXEovacraaa cth tCjv 
ttXeiovuv rrjv Evyapioriav Trepicraevari elg ttjv cot,av tov Qeov)" where 
it is perhaps best to govern ->)v Evyaptariav by TrepicraEvar) taken 
as a transitive, but where the English Version, at all events, 
has three positive errors: (1.) translating >/ x a P 4 e rcXtovaaaaa 
as if?/ irXeovcwacra yaptg', (2.) rendering ru>v ttXeioviov as if 7roX- 
\wv; (3.) giving the wrong sense to cia with the accusative; 
Heb. iv., 7, "Bringing forth herbs meet for them by whom it 
is dressed (cY dig y£w,oy£7-ai)." Yet in Rom. viii.,11, "He shall 
also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth 
in you," our translators were apparently alive to the differ- 
ence of signification in the various readings lih tov Lvoikovvtoq 

L 



112 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

. . . Trvevfiaroc and %ia to evoucovv . . . irvEvp.a, for they add in 
the margin, " Or, because of his Spirit." 

In translating the other prepositions also there is occasion- 
al laxity. Thus kirl twv vetytkCjv is rendered " in the clouds" 
(Matt, xxiv., 30 ; xxvi., 64), though the imagery is marred 
thereby, and though the mention of " him that sat on the 
cloud (ettI rfjg retyiXrjg)" in the Apocalypse (xiv.,15,16) ought 
to have insured the correct translation. And similarly in 
Matt, iv., 6; Luke iv., 11, the English rendering "In their 
hands they shall bear thee up" presents a different picture 
from the e-n-l x u P&v of the original.* Again, the proper force 
of elg is often sacrificed where the loss is not inappreciable. 
Thus, in 2 Cor. xi., 3, ovtoj (j)dctpij ra vorjfiaTa vjjluiv cvko rfjg cnr\6- 
Tt)TOQ rfjg elg tov XpujTov is rendered " So your minds should be 
corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ," where the 
true idea is " sincerity or fidelity toioards Christ," in accord- 
ance with the image in the context, " That I may present you 
as a chaste virgin to Christ." Even more serious is the in- 
jury done to the sense in 1 Cor. viii., 6, aXX hf/iv elg Qeog 6 7ra- 
rrjp el ov to. TtavTa teal fjjAEig elg avTov, kol elg Kvpiog 'Irjtrovg Xpiarog 
Si ov ra 7r<Wa Krai i]fi£~tg hi avrov, where the studiously careful 
distribution of the prepositions in the original is entirely de- 
ranged by rendering elg avrov " in him" instead of" unto him," 
though here a marginal alternative "for him" is given. 

Again, a common form of error is the mistranslation offia-n- 

* In Mark xii., 26, ovk aveyvwrs tv Ty (3ij3\<{) Majvastog ini tov fiarov, 7rwc 
dirty amy 6 Qsoc, " Have ye not read in the book of Moses how in the bush 
God spake unto him?" the wrong idea conveyed in the English Version arises 
more from neglect of the order than from mistranslation of the preposition. 
If the order of the original had been trusted, our translators would have seen 
that £7ri tov j3&Tov must mean "in the passage relating to the bush," " in the 
passage called the bush" (comp. tv HXiy, Rom. xi., 2, "in the history of Eli- 
jah, " where again our A. V. has the wrong rendering ' ' q/'Elias"). Strangely 
enough, Wicliffe alone, of our English translators, gives the right meaning, 
"Han ye not rad in the book of Moises on the bousche how God seide to 
him?" In the parallel passage, Luke xx., 37, the rendering of our Author- 
ized Version "at the bush" is, at all events, an improvement on the preceding 
translations "besides the bush." 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 



113 



ri&iv tig, as 1 Cor. i., 13, " Or were ye baptized in the name of 
Paul (elg to ovofia UavXov) ?" So again, Matt, xxviii.,19 ; Acts 
viii., 16. In Acts xix., 3, 5, after being twice given correctly, 
"Unto what, then, were ye baptized? And they said unto 
John's baptism," nevertheless, when it occurs a third time, it 
is wrongly translated, "When they heard this, they were bap- 
tized in the name (etc to ovofia) of the Lord Jesus." On the 
other hand, in Rom. vi., 3 ; 1 Cor. x., 2 ; xii., 13 ; Gal. iii., 27, 
the preposition is duly respected. 

Again, though the influence of the Hebrew and Aramaic 
has affected the use of h>, so that it can not be measured by a 
strictly classical standard, still the license which our version 
occasionally takes is quite unjustifiable. In such passages as 
Rom. xiv., 14, olSa ko.1 TriwEKT^ai iv Kvplo) 'I^cou, " I know and am 
persuaded by the Lord Jesus;" 1 Cor. xii., 13, km yap iv hi 
TLvevfiaTi fffielg ttvlvteq Eig tv ca^ua e(ja7TTiaQr]fiE v, " For by one Spir- 
it are we all baptized into one body," the Hebraic or instru- 
mental sense of kv is indefensible. 

Lastly, even prepositions with such well-defined meanings 
as cnrd and vwip are not always respected ; as, for example, in 
2 Thess. ii.,1, 2," Now we beseech you, brethren, by (v-n-ip) the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering to- 
gether unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind (inro tov 
voog) ;" while elsewhere 7rajoa is similarly ill treated, 1 Pet. ii., 
4, " Disallowed indeed of men (v-n-b avdpwirojv), but chosen of 

God (jrapa Gfw ekXektov)." 

Under these three heads the most numerous grammatical 
errors of our version fall. But other inaccuracies of divers 
kinds confront us from time to time, and some of these are of 
real importance. Any one who attempts to frame a system 
of the chronology of our Lord's life by a comparison of the 
Gospel narratives with one another and with contemporary 
Jewish history will know how perplexing is the statement in 
our English Version of Luke iii., 23, that Jesus, after his bap- 
tism, " began to be about thirty years of age." But the orig- 



114 LIGHTFOOT ON A FEESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

inal need not and (in fact) can not mean this ; for i]v up^o^evog 
CjgeI iru)v TptaKovra must be translated "was about thirty years 
old when he began" (i. e., at the commencement of his public 
life, his ministry) ; where ojctel is sufficiently elastic to allow 
a year or two, or even more, either under or over the thirty 
years ; and, in fact, the notices of Herod's life in Josephus 
compared with St. Matthew's narrative seem to require that 
our Lord should have been somewhat more than thirty years 
old at the time. Again, such a translation as Phil.iv., 3, aw- 
Xanfiavov avTaig alriveg . . . avvrjdXrjaai' pot, " Help those women 
which labored with me," is impossible ; and, going hand in 
hand with an error in the preceding verse, by which a man, 
" Euodias," is substituted for a woman, " Euodia,"* calls for 
correction. Again, in 2 Pet. iii., 12, the rendering of (nrevdovrag 
rrjv napovaiav rrjg rov Qeov Vfiepag, "Hasting unto the coming 
of the day of God," can not stand, and the alternative sug- 
gested in the margin, "Hasting the coming," should be placed 
in the text; for the words obviously imply that the zeal and 
steadfastness of the faithful will be instrumental in speeding 
the final crisis. Again, the substitution of an interrogative 
for a relative in Matt, xxvi., 50, heaps, e<f o napei, " Friend, 
wherefore art thou come ?" is not warranted by New-Testa- 
ment usage, though here our translators are supported by 
many modern commentators, and the expression must be 
treated as an aposiopesis, " Friend, do that for which thou art 
come."f Again, our translators have on more than one oc- 
casion indulged in the grammatical fiction oi Hypallage, ren- 
dering -Kpog oIkoIo^v rrjg %pdag, " for the use of edifying," in 
Ephes. iv., 29, and cupivreg tov rrjg ap^g rov Xpicrrov \6yov (Heb. 
vi., 1), " leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ." In 
both of these passages, however, there is a marginal note, 

* The Versions of Tyndale and Coverdale, the Great Bible, and the Bish- 
ops' Bible, treat both as men's names, Euodias and Syntiches (Syntyches or 
Sintiches) ; the Geneva Testament (1557) gives both correctly: but the Ge- 
neva Bible takes up the intermediate position, and is followed by our A.V. 
All alike are wrong in the translation of avraig airing. 

f Thus it may be compared with John xiii., 27, o ttouTc, Troirjaov t&xiov. 



FAULTS OF GRAMMAR. 



115 



though in the first the alternative offered " to edify profita- 
bly" slurs over the difficulty. Such grammatical deformities 
as these should be swept away. Neither, again, should we 
tolerate such a rendering as 1 Cor. xii., 28, ai/nXfyitkic, Kvfizp- 
v)]a£ic, " helps in governments,"* where the original contem- 
plates two distinct functions, of which avTiXj'ifxxpeig would ap- 
ply mainly to the diaconate and Kvfiepvi'iveig to the presbytery, 
but where our translators have had recourse to the grammat- 
ical fiction of Hendiadys. A somewhat similar instance to 
the last, where two detached words are combined in defiance 
of the sense, is 1 Cor. xvi., 22, "Let him be Anathema Maran- 
atha," where doubtless the w T ords should be separated ; >/-w 
avadejjia' Mapav a0a, "Let him be anathema. Maran Atha" 
(a. e., " The Lord cometh," or " is come"). 

Isolated examples of grammatical inaccuracy such as these 
might be multiplied ; but I will close with one illustration, 
drawn from the treatment of the word (jxitvew. The distinc- 
tion between (paivew, "to shine," and (palvecrdai, "to appear," 
is based on an elementary principle of grammar. It is there- 
fore surprising that our translators should not have observed 
the difference. And yet, though the context in most cases 
leads them right, the errors of which they are guilty in par- 
ticular passages show that they proceeded on no fixed prin- 
ciple. Thus we have in Acts xxvii., 20, fiij-e aarpuv kitityaivov- 
rhiv ettI TrXeiovag r)fxEpac y " Xor stars in many days appeared" 
and conversely in Matt, xxiv., 27, rat (palve-ai lug cW/w,"And 
shineth even unto the west," and in Phil, ii., 15, iv dig (paiveaQe 
wc (jxoffrrjpeg kv Koff/do), "Among whom ye shine as lights in the 
world" (where the marginal alternative of an imperative 
" shine ye" is given, but no misgiving seems to have been 
suggested to our translators by the voice of (palveade)^ When 

* This is the rendering in the edition of 1611; but the preposition was 
struck out in the Cambridge edition of 1637 (and possibly earlier), and the 
text is commonly printed " helps, governments," but without any authority. 

t Again, in Eev. xviii., 23, <pu>g \vxvov ov //?) <pavy iv aoi In, if the word 
was accentuated as a passive (cpavy) in the text used by our translators, as 
was probably the case, they have rendered it incorrectly, " The light of the 



116 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

they have gone so far wrong in a simple matter of inflection, 
it is not surprising that syntactic considerations should have 
been overlooked, and that they should not have recognized 
the proper distinction between tyaLvojiai elvai, "I appear to 
be," and (paivo^ai &v, " I am seen to be." Of this error they 
are guilty in Matt, vi., 16, 18, oVus faruxriv rolg avOpajwoig vt}(T- 

TEVOVTEQ, 07TU)Q fJt,rj tydVrjg TCUQ avQpU)%OLQ VEGTEViOV) " That they may 

appear unto men to fast," " That thou appear not unto men 
to fast," though the sense is correctly given by Tyndale (with 
whom most of the older versions agree substantially), "That 
they might be seen of men how they fast," " That it appear 
not unto men how that thou fastest." 

The directly opposite fault to that which has just been 
discussed also deserves notice, and may perhaps be consid- 
ered here. If hitherto attention has been directed to the isr- 
norance or disregard of Greek grammar in our translators, 
it may be well to point out instances in which they have 
attempted to improve the original, where the connection is 
loose or the structure ungrammatical. This happens most 
frequently where past and present tenses are intermingled 
in the original ; e.g., Matt, iii., 15, 16, 6 'Irjaovg eIttev irpog abrov 
. . . tote cKplrjcriy avrov . . . Kal joa-KTiaQElg 6 'Irjaovg aveflr), where, 
for the sake of symmetry, a^irjmp is translated suffered; or 
Mark xiv., 53, 54, Kal cnr^yayov rov 'Irjaovv , . . Kal avvepyjiv- 
rai avra) tzclvteq . . . Kal 6 UErpoe cnco fiaKpoQEV ^koXovOtjcep ctirw, 
where, for the same reason, awipyovTai is given were assembled. 
In all such cases there is no good reason for departing from 
the original. This is not a question of the idiom in different 
languages, but of the style of a particular author; and pe- 
culiarities of style should, as far as possible, be reproduced. 

candle shall shine nd more in thee ;" but here Lachmann and others read the 
active $avy. In Eev. viii., 12, they read (paivy, and rightly translated it 
' ' shone ; " but modern critical editors substitute <pdvy or <pavy. In Acts xxi. , 
3, "When we had discovered Cyprus," the correct text is probably ava<pa- 
vevreg dk rr\v KvTrpov, but "discovered" seems to be intended as a transla- 
tion of the other reading, avcupavavreg. 



FAULTS OF GBA3IMAB. n>j 

Moreover, our translators themselves have not ventured al- 
ways to reduce the tenses to uniformity, so that the license 
they have taken results in capricious alterations here and 
there, which serve no worthy purpose. 

These, however, are nothing more than loosenesses of style. 
But even grammatical inaccuracies ought to be preserved as 
far as possible, for it will generally be found that in such 
cases the grammar is sacrificed to some higher end — cither 
greater force of expression or greater clearness of meaning. 
More than one instance of this occurs in the Apocalypse. In 
the letters to the Seven Churches the messages close with 
words of encouragement to the victor in the struggle. In 
the last four of these the words 6 vvdav are flung out at the 
beginning of the sentence without any regard to the subse- 
quent construction, which in three out of the four is changed 
so that the nominative stands alone without any government: 

ii., 26, KO.L 6 VLKU)V dwiTU) O.VTU) it,ov(riav', lii., 12, 6 VIK&V, 

7T0irjaio avrbv arukoVy iii., 21, 6 vikGjv, dwaio o.vtu> Kadiaai. In the 
first instance only have our translators had the courage to re- 
tain the broken grammar of the original, "And Vie that over- 
cometh . . . to him will I give," acting thus boldly, perhaps, 
because the intervening words partly obscure the irregularity. 
In the other two cases they have set the grammar straight : 
" Him that overcometh will I make a pillar," " To him that 
overcometh will I grant to sit." Yet there was no sufficient 
reason for making a difference, and in all alike the English 
should have commenced as the Greek commences, " He that 
overcometh." 

Would it be thought overbold if I were to counsel the same 
scrupulous adherence to the form of the original in a still 
more important passage? In Rev. i.,4, x^P L ^ ty"* KCLl ^pwv 
goto \tov\ o £)v kcl\ 6 i\v Kol 6 ep^ofievog, the defiance of grammar 
is even more startling. It may be true that a cultivated 
Athenian could hardly have brought himself to write thus ; 
but certainly the fisherman of Galilee did not so express him- 
self from mere ignorance of Greek, for such ignorance as this 



118 LIGHTFOOT ON A FEESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

supposition would assume must have prevented his writing 
the Apocalypse at all. In this instance, at least, where the 
apostle is dealing with the Name of names, the motive which 
would lead him to isolate the words from their context is 
plain enough. And should not this remarkable feature be 
preserved in our English Bible? If in Exod.iii.,14,the words 
run, "I am hath sent me unto you," may we not also be* al- 
lowed to read here, " from He that is, and that was, and 
that is to come ?" Certainly the violation of grammar would 
not be greater in the English than it is in the Greek. 

§ 5 - 

If the errors of grammar in our English Version are very nu- 
merous, those of lexicography are not so frequent. Yet even 
here several indisputable errors need correction ; not a few 
doubtful interpretations may be improved ; and many vague 
renderings will gain by being made sharper and clearer. 

Instances of impossible renderings occur from time to time, 
though the whole number of these is not great. By impossi- 
ble renderings I mean those cases in which our translators 
have assigned to a word a signification which it never bears 
elsewhere, and which, therefore, we must at once discard, with- 
out considering whether it does or does not harmonize with 
the context. 

Such, for instance, is the treatment of the particles hi and 
ijdr) in occasional passages where their meaning is inter- 
changed in our version, as in Mark xiii.,28, orav avrfjg iftr) 6 
K\a()og u-n-aXog yevrjrai, *c.r.\.," When her branch is yet tender," 
for " As soon as its branch is tender" (the sign of approaching 
summer) ; and 2 Cor. i., 23, ovksti 7]\doi> elg Kopivdov, "I came 
not as yet unto Corinth," for " I came no more unto Corinth" 
(I paid no fresh visit) ; or the rendering of cbrai; in Heb. xii., 
26, en anal eyio aeLu), " Yet once more I shake ;" or of kcu yap in 
Matt. XV., 27, vat, Kvjoie, ical yap ra Kvvapia eardiei, " Truth, Lord, 
yet the dogs eat." And when we turn from particles to nouns 
and verbs, examples will not fail us. Such are the renderings 



FA UL TS OF LEXICO GRAPHT. hq 

of avsxptog in Col. iv., 10, "Marcus, sister's so?i to Barnabas" (6 
avExj/idg Baoj/a/3a),for cousin ; of <f>divo7rupu>bg in Jude 12, "Trees 
whose fruit withereth, without fruit (UvSpa (pdipo-n-wpiva amora), 
twice dead, plucked up by the roots," for "autumn trees with- 
out fruit, etc.," where there appears to be a reference to the 
parable of the barren fig-tree (Luke xiii., 6), and where, at all 
events, the mention of the season when fruit might be ex- 
pected is significant,* while under any circumstances the awk- 
ward contradiction of terms in our English Version should 
have suggested some misgiving; of QpLanfieveiv in 2 Cor. ii., 
14, " God, which always causeth us to triumph (™ TrcWo-e dpt- 
anfievovTi iifiag) in Christ," for " leadeth us in triumph," where 
the image of the believer made captive and chained to the car 
of Christ is most expressive, while the paradox of the apostle's 
thanksgiving over his own spiritual defeat and thraldom is at 
once forcible and characteristic; and of irapeaiQ in Rom. iii., 
25, " To declare his righteousness for the remission of past 
sins (hia -))v Trapeaiv ~u>v 7rpoyeyov6rix)v afjiaprrjjj.ariov),'" for "by 
reason of the passing over of the former sins ;" where the 
double error of mistranslating £m, and of giving Trupeo-ig the 
sense of cKpeaie, has entirely shattered the meaning, and where 
the context implies that this signal manifestation of God's 
righteousness was vouchsafed, not because the sins were for- 

* Strange to say, the earliest versions all rendered $9ivo7rajpiva correctly. 
Tyndale's instinct led him to give what I can not but think the right turn to 
the expression : "Trees with out frute at gadringe [gathering] time,"t.e., at 
the season when fruit was looked for; I can not agree with Archbishop Trench 
(p. 161), who maintains that "Tyndale was feeling after, though he has not 
grasped, the right translation, "and himself explains <p9ivo7T(opiva, aKapira, as 
" mutually completing one another," without leaves, without fruit. Tyndale 
was followed by Coverdale and the Great Bible. Similarly Wicliffe has "her- 
vest trees without fruyt,"and the Rheims Version "Trees of Autumne, un- 
fruiteful." The earliest offender is the Geneva Testament, Avhich gives "cor- 
rupt trees and without frute, " a rendering adopted also in the Geneva Bible. 
The Bishops' Bible strangely combines both renderings, "trees withered [<p6i- 
vuv~] at fruite geathering [oirwpa'] and without fruite," which is explained in 
the margin "Trees withered in Autumne when the fruite harvest is, and so 
the Greke woord importeth," while at the same time other alternative inter- 
pretations are given. 



120 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

given, but because they were only overlooked for the time 
without being forgiven.* Other examples, again, are avXa- 
yijjyeiv in Col. ii., 8, fii] rig vjiag etrrai 6 avXayioyior, " Lest any 
man spoil you," for " make spoil of you," " carry you off as 

plunder y" 7rpo(3i(3a£eiv in Matt.xiv.,8, TTpofiifiaoQeiaa virb rrjg jjle- 
rpbg avrijg," Being before instructedhj her mother," for "being 
put foricard, urged, by her mother," for there is no instance 
of the temporal sense of the preposition in this compound ; 
kTTEpbJvnfxa in 1 Pet. iii., 21, "The ansioer of a good conscience 
toward God," for " the question" where the word may mean 
a petition, but certainly can not mean an answer y hKaiufiaTa 
in Rom. ii., 26, "If the circumcision keep the righteousness of 
the law," for " the ordinances of the law ;" irupovp, -n-ajptjaig, in 
the Epistles (Rom. xi., 7, 25; 2 Cor. iii., 14; Eph. iv., 18), where 
they are always rendered "blind, blindness," though correctly 
translated in the Gospels (Mark iii., 5 ; vi., 52 ; John xii., 40), 
" harden, hardness."f 

In some cases the wrong rendering of our translators arose 
from a false derivation, which was generally accepted in their 
age. Thus adpaiog is rendered "harmless" (from dpag, K£pa'/£w), 
Matt, x., 16 ; Phil, ii., 15, instead of " simple, pure, sincere" 
(from Kepavvvjjii, " to mix, adulterate"), though in Rom. xvi.,19 
it is correctly given. J So also epidela is taken to mean " strife, 
contention" (Rom. ii., 8; 2 Cor. xii., 20; Gal. v., 20; Phil, i., 
17; ii., 3; James iii., 14, 16), from its supposed connection 
with epig ; whereas its true derivation is from epSog, " a hired 
partisan," so that it denotes " party spirit." And again, in 

* An alternative sense of irapiaiv is given in the margin, "or passing over;" 
but this is not sufficient to elicit the right meaning without also correcting the 
rendering of did. 

f This illustrates the incongruity which results from assigning different 
parts of the New Testament to different persons. In the instance before us, 
however, a compromise is effected by marginal alternatives. In Mark iii., 
5, the margin has"o?* blindness;" in Eom.xi.,7, 25 ; Eph.iv.,18, "or hard- 
ened," li or hardness." In the other passages there is no margin in the edition 
of 1611. 

X In Matt, x., 16, however, the margin has " or simple," and in Phil, ii., 
15, " or sincere." 



FAULTS OF LEXICOGRAPHY. 



121 



Jude 12, ovroi elcnv zv ralg aycnraig vfiwv <jkl\uZec, "These are 
spots in your feasts of charity," amXafcc, " rocks," is translated 
as if <77r7\of, " spots ;"* our translators having doubtless been 
influenced by the parallel passage 2 Pet. ii., 13, o-tt7\oi rai jjlu>^oi 
iv-pvtywvTtQ h ralg cnraraig avruiv^fyiots are they and blemishes, 
sporting themselves with their own deceivings."f The last 
example of this class of errors which I shall take is the sur- 
name of Simon the apostle, "the Canaanite." The correct 
form of the word is Kavavaioe, not Kavavirrig, in both passages 
where it occurs (Matt, x.,4 ; Mark iii.,18), but the latter stood 
in the text which our translators had before them. Yet this 
false reading certainly should not have misled them, for Xaw- 
raloc, the word for the Canaanite in the LXX. and in Matt, 
xv., 22, is even farther from Kava^lrrjg than from Kavavaiog. 
The parallel passages in St. Luke (Luke vi., 15; Acts i., 13) 
point to the fact that this surname is the Aramaic word Ka- 
lian, 'jSDp, corresponding to the Greek ^Xwn/c,"the Zealot ;J 

* At least this is the view taken by modern commentators almost univer- 
sally ; but it does not seem to me certain that cririXadsg here can not mean 
"spots ;" for (1.) All the early versions connect it with this root, translating 
it either as a substantive "stains," or as an adjective "polluted." This is 
the case with the Old and the Revised Latin, with both the Egyptian versions, 
and with the Philoxenian Syriac ; nor have I noticed a single one which ren- 
ders it "rocks." (2.) As cnrl\og (or cttt/Xoc), which generally signifies a" spot" 
or "stain," sometimes has the sense "a rock," so conversely it is quite possi- 
ble that o-rriXag, "a rock," should occasionally exchange its ordinary mean- 
ing for that of (T7riXoc. (3.) In one of the Orphic poems, Lith., 614, KardariK- 
tov (jTTiXdSeam Trvpaymv XevKatg tz \n\aivo\ikvaig xXoepat^ re, it has this sense ; 
and, though this poem was apparently not written till the fourth century, still 
it seems highly improbable that the writer should have derived this sense of 
the word solely from St. Jude. If he did so, it only shows how fixed this in- 
terpretation had become before his time. (4.) The extreme violence of the 
metaphor, " rocks in your feasts of charity," is certainly not favorable to the 
interpretation which it is proposed to substitute. And (5.) though this ar- 
gument must not be pressed, yet the occurrence of <T7rl\oi icai fiwfxoi in the 
parallel passage (2 Pet. ii., 13) must be allowed some weight in determining 
the sense of cnriXddeg here. 

f I have quoted the passage as it stands in the received text, Iv ralg cnra- 
rai£,but kv ralg aya-naig is read by Lachmann and Tregelles, as in Jude 12. 

% See Ewald, Gesch. des V. Isr., v., p. 322 ; Derembourg, UHistoire de la 
Palestine, p. 238. This is a common termination of names of sects when 



122 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

and this being so, it is somewhat strange that our translators 
should have gone astray on the word, seeing that the Greek 
form for i«aa, " Canaanite," is invariably spelt correctly with 
an X corresponding to Caph, and not with a K correspond- 
ing to Koph. The earlier versions, however, all suppose the 
word to involve the name of a place, though they do not all 
render it alike. Tyndale, Coverdale, and the Great Bible 
have " Simon of Cane" or " Cana ;" the Geneva Testament 
(1557) has " of Canan" in the one place, and of" Cane" in the 
other ; the Geneva Bible " Cananite" in both. The Bishops' 
Bible, so far as I have observed, first prints the word with a 
double a (Matt, x., 4), thus fixing the reference to Canaan * 

Grecized; e. g., 'Aamdalog, Qapiuaiog, ZaSSovicalog, 'Ecjcalog (Hegesippus in 
Euseb., H. E., iv., 23). This fact seems to have escaped Meyer when he 
points to the termination as showing that Kavavalog denotes the name of a 
place, and thus exhibits a false tradition, while the true account is preserved 
in the fyXuTrig of St. Luke. Indeed, the formation of Kavavalog from Kanan 
is exactly analogous to that of Qapiaalog from Pharish, or 'Aacndalog from 
Hhasid. Meyer confesses himself at a loss to name any place to which he 
can refer Kavavalog. 

In the Peshito Kavavalog is translated f<LiJjLD , but Xavavalog r** *^v *«>,■ 
where the difference of the initial letter and the insertion of the ^. in the lat- 
ter word show that in this version the forms were not confounded. 

* To this list of false derivations some would add Karavvlig in Kom. xi. , 8, 
where 7tvevpa tcaravvZecog is rendered "the spirit of slumber," though with 
the marginal alternative remorse ; but I doubt whether Archbishop Trench 
is right in saying (p. 153) that " our translators must have derived Karavv^ig 
from vvGT&Zsiv, as many others have done." The fact is, that Karavvaaeiv, 
Kardvv'iig, are frequently used in the LXX. to translate words denoting heavy 
sleep, silence, amazement, and the like, e. g., Levit. x., 3 ; Psa. iv., 5 ; xxx., 
13 ; xxxv., 15 ; Isa. vi., 5 ; Dan. x., 9 ; and in the very passage to which St. 
Paul here refers, Isa. xxix., 10, Karavv%ig represents the Hebrew iTaTiri, 
" deep sleep." The idea of numbness is the connecting link between prick- 
ing, wounding, and stupor, heavy sleep. Fritzsche {Rom., ii., p. 558 seq.) has 
an important excursus on the word, but is not always happy in his explana- 
tion of the LXX. renderings. The earlier English versions generally adopt- 
ed the more literal meaning of Kardvv^ig. Thus Wicliffe and the Rheims 
Version have "compunction," after the Vulgate; Tyndale, Coverdale, and 
the Great Bible, " unquietness ; " the Bishops' Bible, "remorse," with the 
marginal note, "That is, pricking and unquietnesse of conscience." The Ge- 
neva Testament (1557) is as usual the innovator, rendering the word "heaAnr 
sleep." Eor this the Geneva Bible substitutes "slumber," but with a margin 
" or pricking." 



FAULTS OF LEXICOGRAPHY. 123 

There are other passages where, though the word itself 
will admit the meaning assigned to it in our version, and so 
this meaning can not be called impossible, yet the context 
more or less decidedly favors another sense. Examples be- 
longing to this class are James iii., 5, \lov dXiyov [1. i]Xikov\ nvp 
i)\kr)v vXrju avairrei, " Behold how great a matter a little fire 
kindleth," where the literal meaning of vXrj is certainly to be 
preferred to the philosophical, and where it is most strange 
that our translators, having the correct word, " wood," pres- 
ent to their minds, should have banished it to the margin ; 
Matt, xxvi.,15, 'ivT-qaav ahrio rpuiKovra apyvpta, "They covenant- 
ed with Mm for thirty pieces of silver," where the passage in 
Zechariah (xi., 12, "They weighed for my price thirty pieces 
of silver," LXX. lur-qaav) to which the evangelist alludes 
ought to have led to the proper rendering of the same word 
here, "iceighed unto him;" Heb. ii., 19, ov yap hi]irov ayyiXwv 
kTrikctfJifiav £7 ai aXXa (nrepfJiaTog 'A/3pa<^u iiriXa.{i{3av£7ai i " He took 
not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed 
of Abraham," where the context suggests the more natural 
meaning of e-iXafxjSavEada^ " To take hold of for the purpose 
of supporting or assisting" (comp. ver. 18, j3or)drj<jai) ; Mark iv., 
29, orav Trapahoi 6 Kcip-trSe, "When the fruit is brought forth" 
where the right meaning ripe is given in the margin ; Acts 
ii., 3, cta/jepi^o/jLerai yXuxraai wael 7rvp6c, " Cloven tongues as of 
fire," where the imagery and the symbolism, not less than the 
tense, suggest a different rendering of Biajuepi^o/jievai, parting 
asunder y 2 Cor. iv., 4, elg to jj.i) auyao-cu [ai/roTc] rbv <\hj)7igii6v 
7ov svayyeXiov, " Lest the light of the Gospel . . . shoidd shine 
unto them," where indeed the fault was not with the trans- 
lators, but with the reading, since, having av7o~ig in their text, 
they had no choice but to translate the words so; but when 
clv7o~iq is struck out (as it should be), a different sense ought 
perhaps to be given to avyaaai, " That they might not behold 

The reasons why I do not class Ittiovgioq among these words, in which a 
mistaken derivation has led to a wrong translation, will he given in the Ap- 
pendix. 



124 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

the light," etc. Another and a very important example of 
this class of errors is the rendering of 7rcue in Acts iii., 13, 26; 
iv., 27, 30, where it is translated "son" or "child" in place 
of " servant," thus obliterating the connection with the pro- 
phetic announcement of the " servant of the Lord" in Isaiah.* 
It is not here, as elsewhere, the Sonship, but the ministry, on 
which the apostles dwell. In Matt, xii., 18, where the proph- 
ecy itself (Isa. xlii., 1) is quoted and applied to our Lord, the 
words are rightly translated, "Behold, I send my servant y" 
and, indeed, when confronted with the original, no one would 
think of rendering it otherwise. Other instances, again, are 
the rendering of aipeiv in John i., 29, 6 aipwv rf/v apapriav rov 
Koajjiov, " Which taketh away the sin of the world," where the 
marginal reading beareth should probably be substituted in 
the text; and similarly of aveveyKEiv in Heb. ix., 28; 1 Pet. 
ii., 24, avf veyKtiv cisapride, "To bear the sins," where the true 
idea is not that of sustaining a burden, but of raising upon 
the cross. So, again, TceirX-npocpop-mxhiov in Luke i., 1, probably 
means " fulfilled" rather than " most surely believed," as in 
the latter sense the passive is used only of the persons con- 
vinced, and not of the things credited. On the other hand, it 
is not certain whether Patrra^eiv means " to carry off, to steal," 
in John xii., 6, -a fiaXXofieva iftaara&v, or whether the English 
Version '"''bare what was put therein" should stand. 

In another class of words, the English rendering, while it 
can not be called incorrect, is vague or inadequate, so that 
the exact idea of the original is not represented, or the sharp- 
ness of outline is blurred. This defect will be most obvious 
in metaphors. For instance, in Rom. vi., 13, where faXa A&*s 
me is rendered "instruments of unrighteousness" instead of 
arms or weapons (which, however, is given as an alternative 
in the margin), we fail to" recognize the image of military 
service rendered to Sin as a great king (ver. 12, p) (jaaiXevino) 
who enforces obedience (y^anoveiv) and pays his soldiery in 
the coin of death (verse 23, -a o^Cjvia rfjg a/iapriag Qavarog). 
* See especially Trench, Authorized Version, p. 95. 



FA TILTS OF LEX1C0GBAPHY. 125 

Again, the rendering of Col. ii., 5, vpiuiv n)v rat,iv rat to orepe'w- 
fia ttjq elg Xpiarov -ntartioq v/iwj/, " Your order and the steadfast- 
ness of your faith in Christ," fails to suggest the idea of the 
close phalanx arrayed for battle which is involved in the orig- 
inal;* and similarly in 2 Cor. x., 5, irav vxpojfia kiraipofxevov Kara 
t7~iq yvwcTEWQ tov 0£ou, our translators, in rendering the words 
"Every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge 
of God," appear not to have seen that this expression contin- 
ues the metaphor of the campaign ((rrparevu/jiEda) and the for- 
tresses (o'xupwjuara) in the context, and that the reference is 
to the siege-works thrown up for the purpose of attacking the 
faith. Again, the metaphor ofca-acaprav is very inadequate- 
ly given in 2 Cor. xi., 9, "I was chargeable to no man," and 
in xii., 13, 14, "I was not, I will not be, burdensome to any 
one ;" and the " thorn in the flesh" in the English Version of 
2 Cor. xii., 7 has suggested interpretations of St. Paul's mal- 
ady, which the original (TKo\o\p y "a stake" does not counte- 
nance, and is almost as wide of the mark as the Latin stim- 
ulus camis, which also has led to much misunderstanding. 
These are a few instances out of many which might be given 
where a metaphor has suffered from inadequate rendering. 

Other examples also, where no metaphor is involved, might 
be multiplied. Thus, in Matt, ix., 16 ; Mark ii., 21, it is difficult 
to see why our translators should have abandoned the natu- 
ral expression "undressed cloth," which occurs in the Geneva 
Testament as a rendering of pekoe ayvatyov, for " new cloth," 
contenting themselves with putting " raw or unwrought" in 
the margin. In Matt, xxvi., 36 ; Mark xiv., 32, we read in the 
English Version of " a place called Gethsemane ;" the Greek, 
however, is not x^P°e? ^ ut X U) P L0V '•> n °t a pl ace > but " a parcel 
of ground" (as it is rendered in John iv., 5), an inclosure, a 
field or garden, and thus corresponds more closely to Kij-n-og, 
by which St. John describes the same locality, though with- 
out mentioning the name (xviii.,1). In Acts i., 3, oTr-avofxevoQ 

* 1 Mace, ix., 14, tlcev 'lovdag on BaKx^rjg ical to OTtpkufxa Trjg Tapip.- 
(3o\rjg iv Toig dt%io7g. 



126 L1GHTF00T ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

avroTiQ should not have been translated "being seen of them," 
for the emphatic word o-KTavEaQm, which does not occur else- 
where in the New Testament, expresses much more than this, 
and "showi?ig himself unto them" would be a better, though 
still an inadequate rendering. In Rom. ii., 22, 6 (jSeXwaofievoQ 
ra eiSioXa iepovvXeHc, the inconsistency of the man who plun- 
ders a heathen temple while professing to loathe an idol is lost 
by the rendering "dost thou commit sacrilege;" and indeed 
it may be suspected that our translators misapprehended the 
force of lepo(Tv\e~ic, more especially as in most of the earlier 
versions it was translated "robbest God of his honor." In 
Acts xiv., 13, "Then the priest of Jupiter which was before 
the city brought oxen and garlands unto the gates," the En- 
glish reader inevitably thinks of the city gates ; but as the 
Greek has 7rvXa>vac, not irvXac, the portal, or gateway, or vesti- 
bule of the Temple is clearly meant. This was seen by Tyn- 
dale, who quaintly translates it " the church porch." In Acts 
xvii., 29, St. Paul, addressing an audience of heathen philoso- 
phers, condescends to adopt the language familiar to them, 
and speaks of to QeIov — an expression which does not occur 
elsewhere in the New Testament ; but in the English render- 
ing " Godhead" this vague philosophical term becomes con- 
crete and precise, as though it had been Qeo-^q in the original. 
In Acts xiii., 50, and elsewhere, ol (te^o^levou ai o-f/3d/z£vcu, by 
which St. Luke always means " proselytes, worshipers of the 
one God," are translated " devout ;" and hence the strange 
statement (which must perplex many an English reader) that 
" the Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women . . . 
and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas." In 2 Cor. 
xiii., 11, Karapri^eaQe is rendered "be perfect" and in the 9th 
verse, tyiv v^wv Karap-Kriv, " your perfection y" but the context 
shows that in these parting injunctions St. Paul reiterates the 
leading thought of the Epistles, exhorting the Corinthians to 
compose their differences ; and this is the meaning of 1 Cor. 
i., 10, i)re he Karrjp-KrjjiEPOL ev tio ai/rw j/ot, where it is better 
rendered "that ye be perfectly joined together, etc." Lastly, 



TEE A TMENT OF PR OFFR NAMES, ETC. 12 7 

in 1 Tim. iii.,.3; Tit. i., 7, p) Trapoivov is translated "not given 
to wine ;" but in the first passage this idea is already ex- 
pressed by vrjfaXwv, and, natural as the more obvious render- 
ing might seem, the usage of itapoivoQ elsewhere shows that it 
denotes " a brawler," " a quarrelsome person" (which is the 
alternative meaning offered in the margin). 

I will close this section with an illustration, of which it is 
difficult to say whether we should more properly class it un- 
der the head of lexicography or of grammar. 2a/3/3ara is the 
Aramaic form of the Hebrew word for " a sabbath" written 
out in Greek letters. Appearing in this form, it is naturally 
declined as a plural, <7a/3/3ara, o-a/3/3arw^, but nevertheless re- 
tains its proper meaning as a singular. How widely this 
form was known, and how strictly it preserved its force as 
a singular, will appear from Horace's " Hodie tricesima sab- 
bata." In our version of the New Testament, whenever the 
meaning is unmistakable it is translated as a singular (e. g., 
Matt, xii., 1,11; Mark i., 21 ; ii., 23 ; iii., 2 ; Acts xiii., 14) ; 
but where the sense is doubtful a plural rendering is mostly 
preferred (e. g., Matt, xii., 5, 10, 1 2 ; Mark iii., 4). In all these 
cases, however, it is much better treated as a singular, in ac- 
cordance with the sense which it bears in the same contexts ; 
and in such a passage as Col. ii., 16, kv fiipet lop-iic i) veo/j^yiag 
>} (Tafj/janoy, the plural " sabbath- days" is obviously out of 
place, as co-ordinated with two singular nouns. The only 
passage in the New Testament where (ra(3j3a-a is distinctly 
plural is Acts xvii., 2, £7rt <ra/3/3ara rpia, where it is defined by 
the numeral. 

§6. 
Over and above the ordinary questions of translation, there 
is a particular class of words which presents special difficul- 
ties and needs special attention. Proper names, official titles, 
technical terms, which, as belonging to one language and one 
nation, have no direct equivalents in another, must obviously 
be treated in an exceptional way. Are they to be reproduced 

M 



128 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

as they stand in the original, or is the translator to give the 
terms most nearly corresponding to them in the language of 
his version? Is he to adopt the policy of despair, or the 
policy of compromise ? Or may he invoke either principle 
according to the exigencies of the case? and, if so, what laws 
can be laid down to regulate his practice and to prevent 
caprice ? 

Of this class of words, proper names are the least difficult 
to deal with ; and yet even these occasionally offer perplex- 
ing problems. 

The general principles on which our translators proceeded 
in this matter are twofold. First, where no familiar English 
form of a name existed, they retained the form substantially 
as they found it. In other words they reproduced the Hebrew 
or Chaldee form in the Old Testament, and the Greek in the 
New. Secondly ; where a proper name had been adopted into 
the English language, and become naturalized there with 
some modification of form, or where the person or place was 
commonly known in English by a name derived from some 
other language, they adopted this English equivalent, how- 
ever originated. Instances of English equivalents arrived at 
by the one process are Eve, Herod, James, John, Jude, Luke, 
Magdalene, Mary, Peter, Pilate, Saul, Stephen, Zebedee, Italy, 
Rome, etc. ; of the other, Assyria, Ethiopia, Euphrates, Idu- 
mea, Mesopotamia, Persia, Syria, etc., Artaxerxes, Cyrus, Da- 
rius, etc., for Asshur, Cush, Phrath, Edom, Aram-Naharaim, 
Pharas, Aram, etc., Arta-chshashta, Coresh, Daryavesh, etc., 
in the Old Testament,* the more familiar classical forms being 
substituted for the less familiar Hebrew ; and of Diana, Ju- 
piter, Mercurius, for Artemis, Zeus, Hermes, in the New, the 
more familiar Latin being substituted for the less familiar 

* In this, however, there is great inconsistency. Thus we have Cush in 
Isa. xi.,ll,but Ethiopia in xviii.,1, etc. ; r Edom in Isa. xi.,14; lxiii.,l,but 
Idumea in xxxiv., 5, 6 ; Asshur in Hos. xiv., 4, but Assyria elsewhere in this 
same prophet ; Javan in Isa. lxvi. ,19, but Greece or Grecia in the other proph- 
ets ; and so with other words. 



TREA TMENT OF PR OPER XAMES, ETC. 1 2 9 

Greek; while in some few cases, e.g., Egypt, Tyre,* etc., both 
modifying influences have been at work ; the Hebrew has 
been replaced by the Greek, and this, again, has been Angli- 
cized in form. In the instructions given to our translators it 
was so ordered : " The names of the prophets and the holy 
writers, with the other names of the text, to be retained as 
nigh as may be, according as they were vulgarly used." 

With these principles no fault can be found; but the re- 
sult of their application is not always satisfactory. Our 
translators are not uniformly consistent with themselves; 
and, moreover, time has very considerably altered the con- 
ditions of the problem as it presents itself now. 

(1.) The^rs^ of these principles, though it commends itself 
to our own age, was not allowed to pass unquestioned when 
first asserted. At the era of the Reformation, the persons 
mentioned in the Old Testament were commonly known (so 
far as they were known at all) through the Septuagint and 
Vulgate forms. Thus Ochosias stood for Ahaziah, Achab for 
Ahab, Sobna for Shebnah,Elias for Elijah, Eliseus for Elisha, 
Roboam for Rehoboam, Josaphat for Jehoshaphat, Abdias for 
Obadiah, and the like. In Coverdale's Bible these forms are 
generally retained ; but in the later English versions there is 
a tendency to substitute the Hebrew forms, or forms more 
nearly approaching to them. 

In the two versions which held the ground when our Au- 
thorized Version was set on foot — the Bishops' Bible and the 
Geneva Bible — this tendency had reached the utmost limit 
which the English language seemed to allow. In Minister's 
Latin Bible, indeed, an attempt had been made to reproduce 
the Hebrew forms with exactness, and, accordingly, the names 
of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel there appear as Jesahiahu, 
Irmeiahu, and Iechezchel. This extreme point, however, was 
never reached by any of our English translators ; but still, in 
the Geneva Bible, the names of the patriarchs are written 

* Yet "Tyre" and "Tyrus" are employed indifferently, and without any rule, 
in the Old Testament. 



130 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE K TEST. 

Izhak and Iaakob, and in. the Bishops' Bible we meet with 
such forms as Amariahu, Zachariahu. 

This tendency was not left unassailed. Gregory Martin, in 
his attack on the " English Bibles used and authorized since 
the time of the schism," published at Rheims in 1582, writes 
as follows : 

Of one thing we can by no means excuse you, but it must savor 
vanity or novelty, or both. As when you affect new strange words 
which the people are not acquainted withal, but it is rather Hebrew 
to them than English : /xaXa cefivuig ovofiaZovreg, as Demosthenes speak- 
eth, uttering with great countenance and majesty. "Against him 
came up Nabuchadnezzar, king of Babel," 2 Par. xxxvi., 6, for " Nab- 
uchodonosor, king of Babylon ;" " Saneherib" for " Sennacherib ;" 
" Michaiah's prophecy" for " Michaea's ;" " Jehoshaphat's prayer" for 
" Josaphat's ;" " Uzza slain" for " Oza ;" " when Zerubbabel went about 
to build the Temple" for " Zorobabel ;" " remember what the Lord 
did to Miriam" for " Marie," Deut. xxxiv. ; and in your first* transla- 
tion " Elisa" for " Elisaeus ;" " Pekahia" and " Pekah" for " Phaceia" 
and " Phacee ;" " Uziahu" for " Ozias ;" " Thiglath-peleser" for " Teg- 
lath-phalasar ;" " Ahaziahu" for " Ochozias ;" " Peka, son of Rema- 
liahu," for " Phacee, son of Romelia." And why say you not as well 
" Shelomoh" for " Salomoh," and " Coresh" for " Cyrus," and so alter 
every word from the known sound and pronunciation thereof? Is 
this to teach the people when you speak Hebrew rather than English? 
Were it goodly hearing (think you) to say for " Jesus," " Jeshuah ;" 
and for " Marie," his mother, " Miriam ;" and for " Messias," " Mes- 
siach;" and "John," "Jachannan;" and such-like monstrous novel- 
ties ? which you might as well do, and the people would understand 
you as well, as when your preachers say " Nabucadnezer, king of Ba- 
bel." 

To these charges Fulke gives this brief and sensible reply : 

Seeing the most of the proper names of the Old Testament were 
unknown to the people before the Scriptures were read in English, it 
was best to utter them according to the truth of their pronunciation 
in Hebrew rather than after the common corruption which they had 
received in the Greek and Latin tongues. But as for those names 
which were known to the people out of the New Testament, as Jesus, 

* i. e.,The Great Bible, which was the first Bible in use after "the schism;" 
the edition to which Martin refers is that of 1562. The two Bibles to which 
Martin's strictures mostly apply are the Genevan and the Bishops', as being 
most commonly used when he wrote. See Fulke's Defence, etc., p. 67 seq. 



TREATMENT OF PROPER NAMES, ETC. \^\ 

John, Mary, etc., it had been folly to have taught men to sound them 
otherwise than after the Greek declination, in which we find them.* 

The attack, however, was so far successful, that the revis- 
ers who produced our Authorized translation seem to have 
adopted in each case from the current versions those forms 
w T hich least offended the English eye or ear, even though far- 
ther removed from the Hebrew. Thus, in the examples al- 
ready given, they write Isaac, Jacob, in preference to Izhak, 
Iaakob of the Geneva Bible, and Amariah, Zachariah in pref- 
erence to Amariahu, Zachariahu of the Bishops'. 

With the general treatment of the Old Testament- names 
I have no desire to find fault : perhaps the forms in our En- 
glish Bible approach as nearly to the Hebrew as is desirable. 
But, when we compare the New Testament w T ith the Old, 
some important questions arise. 

In favor of retaining the old Septuagint and Vulgate forms 
in preference to introducing the Hebrew, there w r as this strong 
argument — that the same person thus appeared under the 
same name in the New Testament as in the Old. The En- 
glish reader did not need to be informed that Eliseus was 
the same as Elisha,Ozias as Uzziah, Salathiel as Shealtiel, etc. 
Now he has not this advantage. Even supposing that the 
identity of persons is recognized, much unconscious miscon- 
ception still remains in particular cases. It is very difficult, 
for instance, for an English reader, who has not read or 
thought on the subject, to realize the fact that the Elias w r hom 
the Jews expected to appear in Messiah's days was not some 
weird mythical being, or some merely symbolical person, but 
the veritable Elijah w 7 ho lived on earth, in flesh and blood, in 
the days of Ahab. "Let us just seek to realize to ourselves," 
says Archbishop Trench, "the difference in the amount of 
awakened attention among a country congregation which 
Matt, xvii., 10 would create if it were read thus: 'And his 
disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the Scribes that 

* Fulke's Defence of the English Translations of the Bible, p. 588 seq. 
(Parker Society's edition). 



132 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

JEWjah must first come?' as compared with what it now is 
likely to create." And this argument applies, though in a 
less degree, to the scene of the transfiguration. It is most im- 
portant, as the same writer has observed, to " keep vivid and 
strong the relations between the Old and New Testament in 
the minds of the great body of English hearers and readers 
of Scripture."* 

I imagine that few would deny the advantage of substi- 
tuting the more familiar Old Testament names in such cases 
for the less familiar Septuagint forms preserved in the New ; 
but many more may question whether such a substitution is 
legitimate, and I venture therefore to add a few words in de- 
fence of this reform which I should wish to see introduced. 

If at this point we were to invoke the second principle 
(which has been mentioned above and will be considered pres- 
ently), that whenever a familiar English form of a name oc- 
curs, this shall be substituted for the original, e. g., John for 
Ioannes, James for Iacobos, Mary for Mariam, this principle 
alone would justify the change which I am advocating. For, 
to our generation at least, the familiar English names of the 
Old Testament personages are Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, etc., and 
therefore, on this ground alone, the Greek forms Elias, Elise- 
us, Esaias, should give place to them. In the 16th and 17th 
centuries it might be a question between Esay, Esaie, Esaias, 
Isaiah ,• between Abdy, Abdias, Obadiah ; between Jeremy, 
Jeremias, Jeremiah ; between Osee, Oseas, Osea, Hosea (or 
Hoshea) ; between Sophony, Sophonia, Sophonias, Zephaniah ; 
between Aggeus, Haggeus, Haggai, and the like ; but now 
long familiarity has decided irrevocably in favor of the last 
forms in each case, and there is every reason why the less fa- 
miliar modes of representing the names should give place to 
the more familiar. But, quite independently of this consid- 
eration of familiarity, we should merely be exercising the le- 
gitimate functions of translators if in most cases we were to 
return to the Old Testament forms ; for (with very few ex- 
* Authorized Version, p. 66. 



TREA TMENT OF PR OPER NAMES, ETC. j 3 3 

ceptions) the Greek forms represent the original names as 
nearly as the vocables and the genius of the Greek language 
permit, and in translating it is surely allowable to neglect 
the purely Greek features in the words. This applies espe- 
cially to terminations, such as Jeremias, Jonas, Manasses, for 
Jeremiah, Jonah, Manasseh ; and, in fact, the name Elias it- 
self is nothing more than "Elijah" similarly formed, for the 
Hebrew word could not have been w 7 ritten otherwise in Greek. 
It applies also to the change of certain consonants. Thus a 
Greek had no choice but to represent the sh sound by a sim- 
ple s. Like the men of Ephraim, the Greeks could not frame 
to pronounce the word Shibboleth right ; and it is curious to 
observe to what straits the Alexandrian translator of the nar- 
rative in the book of Judges (xii., 5, 6) is driven in his at- 
tempt to render the incident into this language.* Remem- 
bering this, we shall at once replace Cis (Acts xiii., 21) by 
Kish,f and Aser (Luke ii.,36; Rev. vii.,6) by Asher; while 
the English reader will at length discover that the unfamiliar 
Saron, connected w 7 ith the history of iEneas (Acts ix., 35), is 
the w 7 ell-known Sharon of Old Testament history. Combin- 
ing this principle of change w T ith the foregoing, w T e should re- 
store Elisha in place of Eliseus. For the Hebrew gutturals 
again the Greeks had no equivalent, and were obliged either 
to omit them, or to substitute the nearest sound which their 
language afforded. On this principle they frequently repre- 
sented the final fi by an e ;J and hence the forms Core, Noe, 
w T hich therefore we should without scruple replace by the 
more familiar Korah, Noah. In the middle of a word it w r as 
often represented by a x> which our Old Testament transla- 
tors in this and other positions give an h ; and thus there is 

* He can only say t'nrbv $r) <jto.xvq [A has tliraTS drj ovvBrjfiay ical ov kci- 
rev9vve [A Kai KarrjvOvvav] tov XaXrjcrai q'vtojq. 

+ It is not easy to see why our translators should have written Cis, Core, 
rather than Kis, Kore. 

% The genealogies at the beginning of the Books of Chronicles in the LXX. 
offer very many instances of this change. Sometimes this final e represents 
an V or a il. 



134 LIGHTFOOT ON A FBESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

no reason why RacAab, AcAaz, should stand in the New Tes- 
tament for RaAab, AAaz in the Old. Again, the fact that the 
aspirate, though pronounced, was never written in Greek, 
should be taken into account, and any divergence from the 
Hebrew form which can be traced to this cause might be 
neglected ; thus Agar, Ezekias, would be replaced by Hagar, 
Hezekiah, and Josaphat, Roboam, by Jehoshaphat, Rehobo- 
am.* By adopting this principle of neglecting mere peculiar- 
ities and imperfections of the Greek in the representation of 
the Hebrew names, and thus endeavoring to reproduce the 
original form which has undergone the modification, we should, 
in almost every important instance, bring the names in the 
Old' and New Testament into conformity with each other. 
A very few comparatively trifling exceptions would still re- 
main, where the Greek form can not be so explained. These 
might be allowed to stand ; or, if the identity of the person 
signified was beyond question (e.g., Aram and Ram), the Old 
Testament form might be replaced in the text, and the Greek 
form given in the margin. 

(2.) The second of the two principles which were enunciated 
above as guiding our English translators also requires some 
consideration. 

Under this head the inconsistency of our Authorized Ver- 
sion will need correction, for it is incapable of defense. If 
the prophet was to be called Oseef in the New Testament 

* For 'Paa/3 (Heb. xi., 31 ; James ii., 25) our translators have boldly writ- 
ten " Kahab." While speaking of aspirates, it may be mentioned that in the 
edition of 1611 the normal spelling in the New Testament is "Hierusalem ;" 
the only exceptions which I have noticed being 1 Cor. xvi., 3 ; Gal. i., 17, 
18 ; ii., 1 ; iv., 25, 26 •, Heb. xii., 22, and the headings of some chapters (e. g., 
Acts xxi. ; Eev. xxi.), where "Ierusalem" appears. On the other hand, in 
the Old Testament it is "Ierusalem," though "Hierusalem" occurs in the 
heading of 2 Sam. xiv. 

t It may be questioned whether this word should be pronounced as a dis- 
syllable, the double e being regarded as an English termination, as in Zebe- 
dee, Pharisee, etc. , or as a trisyllable, the word being considered as a repro- 
duction of the Greek 'Qarja, 

On the other hand, there can, I think, be no doubt that the modern fashion 
of pronouncing the final e of Magdalene, as though it represented the r\ of the 



TREATMENT OF PROPER NAMES, ETC. 135 

(Rom. ix., 26), there is no reason why he should have remain- 
ed Hosea in the Old. If the country appears as Greece in 
Zechariah (ix., 13) and in the Acts (xx., 2), why should it be 
named Grecia in the book of Daniel (viii., 21 ; x., 20 ; xi., 2) ? 
If the inhabitants of this country are Greeks in the New Tes- 
tament, why should they be Grecians in the Old (Joel in., 6) ?* 
If Mark is substituted for Marcus in some passages (Acts xii., 
12, 25 ; 2 Tim. iv.,-11), why should Marcus have been allowed 
to stand in others (Col. iv., 10; Philem. 24; 1 Pet. v., 13)? 
Nay, so far does this inconsistency go, that Jeremy and Jere- 
mias occur in the same Gospel (Matt, ii., 17 ; xvi., 14) ; Luke 
and Lucas in two companion epistles sent at the same time, 
from the same place, and to the same destination (Col. iv., 14 ; 
Philem. 24) ; and Timothy and Timothens in the same chap- 
ter of the same epistle (2 Cor. i., 1, 19). In all these cases, 
the form which is now the most familiar should be consist- 
ently adopted. This rule would substitute Jeremiah for Jer- 
emy, but, on the other hand, it would prefer Mark to Marcus. 
At the same time, both Cretes (Acts ii., 11) and Cretians (Tit. 
i., 12) would disappear, and Cretans take their place. 

original, is erroneous. The word is far older than the translations made from 
the Greek in the 16th and 17th centuries, and came from the Latin. Though 
in the A.V. (1611) the spelling is always "Magdalene," yet in the earlier ver- 
sions it is indifferently Magdalen and Magdalene. Wicliffe writes it ' ' Maw- 
deleyn" — a pronunciation which has survived in the names of our colleges and 
in the adjective "maudlin." There is no more reason for sounding the last 
letter in Magdalene than in Urbane (Eom. xvi., 9). 

This last word is printed "Urbane" in all the early editions of the A.V. 
which I have consulted (1611, 1612, 1617, 1629, 1630, 1637). On the other 
hand, the earlier versions, without exception, so. far as I have noticed, have 
"Urban" or " Urbanus." In the Authorized Version (1611) these final e's 
were common ; thus we find Hebrewe, Jewe, Marke, Eomane, Samaritane, etc. 

* In the New Testament "Grecian" is reserved for 'EXXrjviarrjc, while 
" Greek" represents "EWrj v. This distinction is good as far as it goes ; but, 
in order to convey any idea to an English reader, 'EXXjjviarfjg should be trans- 
lated by " Grecian Jew" or by some similar phrase. 

As "E\\t]v is translated "Gentile" without hesitation elsewhere (e.g., 1 
Cor. x., 32 ; xii., 13), it is strange that this rendering is not adopted for "E\- 
\i]vig, where it would have avoided an apparent contradiction, Mark vii. , 26, 
"A Greek, a Syrophenician by nation." 



136 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE K TEST. 

This principle, if consistently carried out, would rule one 
very important example. Familiar usage, which requires that 
the name Jesus should be retained when it designates the 
most sacred Person of all, no less imperatively demands that 
Joshua shall be substituted when the great captain of Israel 
and conqueror of Palestine is intended. For the same reason, 
we speak of the patriarch as Jacob and the apostle as James; 
of the sister of Moses as Miriam, and the mother of the Lord 
as Mary. It so happens that both the passages in which the 
name Jesus designates the Israelite captain (Acts vii., 45 ; 
Heb. iv., 8) are more or less obscure either from difficulties in 
the context or from defects of translation ; and the endless 
confusion which is created in the minds of the uneducated 
by the retention of this form is a matter of every-day expe- 
rience. 

This last example leads me to speak of another point. 
There can be little doubt that, when the same person is in- 
tended, the same form should be adopted throughout. But 
what should be done when the name which has a familiar 
English form applies to unfamiliar persons? Thus the En- 
glish John corresponds to the Greek 'Iwa^e or 'IwtW^e, and 
to the Hebrew Jehohanan or Johanan (•prnni or "pirn). Are 
we then, in every case, to substitute John where either the 
Greek or the Hebrew form occurs ? N"o one would think of 
displacing John the Baptist, or John the son of Zebedee, or 
John surnamed Mark. But what are we to do with the Old 
Testament personages bearing this name ? What with those 
who are mentioned in St.Luke's genealogy, where apparent- 
ly the name occurs more than once in forms more or less dis- 
guised (iii., 24 (?), 27, 30) ? What with John i., 43 ; xxi., 15, 
16, 17, where our English Version gives " Simon, son of Jona," 
but where the true reading in the original is doubtless 'Iwti- 
vov ? I do not know that any universal rule can be laid 
down ; but probably the practice, adopted by our translators, 
of reproducing the name when it occurs in the Hebrew form, 
and translating it when in the Greek, would be generally ap- 



TREATMENT OF PROPER NAMES, ETC. I37 

proved. Yet perhaps an exception might be made of John 

i., 43; xxi., 15,16, 17, where it is advisable either in the text 

or in the margin to show the connection of form with the Bap- 

luva of Matt, xvi., 17.* Again, in the English Version there 

is the greatest confusion in the forms of another name, Ju- 

dah, Judas, Juda, Jude. Thus the patriarch is called both 

Juda and Judah in the same context (Heb. vii.,14; viii., 8), 

and Judas and Juda in parallel narratives (Matt, i., 2, 3 ; Luke 

iii., 33) ; and, again, the brother of Jesus is called Judas in 

one evangelist (Matt, xiii., 55), and Juda in another (Mark vi., 

3). The principle of familiarity suggests Jude for the writer 

of the epistle ; Judah for the patriarch, and the tribe and 

country named from him ; and Judas for Iscariot and for the 

other less known persons bearing the name ; while Juda, 

which occurs for the patriarch or tribe (Luke iii., 33 ; Heb. 

vii.j 14 ; Rev. v., 5 ; vii., 5) and the country (Matt, ii., 6 ; Luke 

i., 39), as well as for other unknown persons (Luke iii., 26 (?), 

* This form 'Icjvd may represent two distinct Hebrew names : (1.) hil^ 
"A dove," the prophet's name, Jonah : (2.) "nT, "The grace of Jehovah," 
Johanan or John. This last is generally written 'Iwctvdv or 'Iwdvng (the form 
'Iwdvvrjg with the double v has inferior support). Contracted it becomes 
'Iwvdv or 'luivd, the first a being liable to be slurred over in pronunciation, 
because the Hebrew accent falls on the last syllable. For 'lwvdv, see 1 Chron. 
xii., 12 (A, Iwav K) ; xxvi., 3 (A); Neh. vi., 18 (B) ; Ezra x., 6 (X corr. 
from Itoavav') ; 1 Esdr. ix., 1 (B) ; Luke iii., 27 (v. 1.) ; hi., 30 (v. 1.) ; for 
'Icjvd, 2 Kings xxv., 23 (B) ; Luke iii., 30 (v. 1.). Thus the vlbg 'Iwdvov of 
St. John is equivalent to the Bapiwvd of St. Matthew. The longer form of 
the name of St. Peter's father was preserved also in the Gospel of the He- 
brews, as we learn from a marginal note in an early cursive MS. (see Tisch- 
endorf, Notit.Cod. Sin., p. 58) on Matt, xvi., 17, Bapiwvd to 'lovca'iicbv vik 
'Iwdvvov; and in an extant fragment inserted in the Latin translation of Ori- 
gen,in Matt. xix.,19 (iii., p. 671 seq., ed. Delarue), but omitted in the Greek, 
we read "Simon fili Joanne, facilius est camelum, etc." From not under- 
standing that the two are forms of the same name, some harmonizer devised 
the statement which we find in a list of apostles preserved in the Paris MSS. 
Peg. 1789, 1026 (quoted by Cotelier, Patr. Apost., i., p. 275), Tlkrpog km Av- 
dpkag ddt\<poi, Ik irarpbg 'Iwvci, [irj-pbg 'iwavvd, or, as it is otherwise read, 
tK TrarpoQ 'Iwdvvov, /inrpbg 'Lwvdg. Our Lord seems to allude to the mean- 
ing of the word in Matt, xvi., 17, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar Jona (Son 
of the Grace of God), for flesh and blood did not reveal it unto thee, but my 
Father which is in heaven." There is probably a similar allusion in all the 
passages in St. John. 



138 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

30), ought to disappear wholly. And, so far as regards Ju- 
dah and Judas, it would be well to follow this principle ; but 
when the name is used of the author of the epistle, though 
Jude might (if it were thought fit) be retained in the title, 
yet Judas should be substituted for Jude in the opening verse, 
so as not to preclude the identification of this person with 
the Lord's brother (which is highly probable), or again with 
his namesake in St. Luke's lists of the apostles (which has 
commended itself to many). 

An error greater than any hitherto mentioned is the ren- 
dering of the female name Euodia (EWuW, Phil, iv., 2) by the 
masculine Euodias ;* while conversely it seems probable that 
we should render the name 'Iowmv, one of St.Paul's kinsfolk, 
who was "noted among the apostles" (Rom. xvi., 7), by Junias 
(i.e., Junianus), not Junia.f 

Whether, in certain cases, a name should be retained or 
translated, will be a matter of question ; but no defense can 
be offered for the inconsistency of retaining "Areopagus" in 
Acts xvii., 19, and rendering it "Mars' hill" three verses be- 
low. Nor, again, is there any reason why Kpaviov roVoc should 
be translated "A (or the) place of a skull" in three gospels 
(Matt, xxvii., 33 ; Mark xv., 22 ; John xix., IV), and 6 tottoq 6 
KoXovfiEvog Kpaviov," The place which is called Calvary" in the 
fourth (Luke xxiii., 33). f In all places where it is possible, 
the practice of rendering seems to be preferable; and by the 
"Three Taverns" a fresh touch is added to the picture of St. 
Paul's journey (Acts xxviii., 15), which would have been yet 
more vivid if consistently therewith our translators had ren- 
dered 'Atttlov ®6pov," The Market of Appius," as it stands in 
the Geneva Version. J 

* See above, p. 114. 

f The word " Jewry," which was common in the older versions for Judah 
or Judsea, has almost disappeared in the Authorized Version of the New Tes- 
tament, but still remains in two passages (Luke xxiii. , 5 ; John vii. , 1). In 
Dan. v., 13, " The children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king my fa- 
ther brought out of Jewry," the same word in the original is rendered both 
" Judah" and " Jewry." 

t Another fault is the rendering both <E>o7vt£, the haven of Crete (Acts 



TREATMENT OF PROPER NAMES, ETC. 139 

The question between reproduction and translation be- 
comes more important when we turn from proper names to 
official titles and technical terms, such as weights, measures, 
and the like. In the Old Testament our translators have fre- 
quently adopted the former principle, e. (/., bath, cor, ephah, 
etc. ; in the New they almost universally adhere to the latter. 

In a version which aims at being popular rather than lit- 
erary, the latter course seems to be amply justified.* Yet, 
when the principle is conceded, the application is full of diffi- 
culty. The choice very often lies between giving a general 
expression which conveys no very definite idea, and adopting 
some technical term which is precise enough to the English 
ear, but suggests a conception more or less at variance with 
the original. 

How, for instance, are we to treat avdinrarog? Wicliffe re- 
produced the Latin "proconsul." The earlier versions of the 
Reformed Church generally give " ruler of the county," " rul- 
er." The Authorized Version adopts the rendering of the Ge- 
neva and Bishops' Bibles, "deputy of the country," "deputy." 
This last has now nothing to recommend it. In the 16th 

xxvii., 12), and <froivticr], the country of Phoenicia (Acts xi., 19 ; xv., 3), by 
the same word "Phenice" (after the Bishops' and Geneva Bibles), while con- 
versely <boiviKr} has two different renderings, "Phenice" (xi., 19 ; xv., 3) and 
' ' Phenicia" (xxi. , 2). The older versions generally, as late as the Great 
Bible, have " Phenices" or " Phenyces" for both words. Did our translators 
intend the final e of "Phenice," when it represents Phoenix, to be mute, on 
the analogy of Beatrix, Beatrice? 

* At all events, whichever course is adopted, it should be carried out con- 
sistently. Thus there is no reason why 'Paj3fii should be sometimes repro- 
duced in the English Version (Matt, xxiii., 7, 8 ; John i., 39, 50 ; iii., 2, 26 ; 
vi., 25) and sometimes rendered "Master" (Matt, xxvi., 25, 49 ; Mark ix., 
5 ; xi., 21 ; xiv., 45 ; John iv., 31 ; ix., 2 ; xi., 8), or in like manner why 
'Pa/3/3ow«, which only occurs twice, should be once translated " Lord" (Mark 
x., 51) and once retained (John xx., 16). 

In the same way the word iraaxa, which is generally rendered " Passover," 
is represented once, and only once, by "Easter" (Acts xii., 4). This is a 
remnant of the earlier versions in Avhich -xaaya. is commonly translated so, 
even in such passages as Luke xxii. , 1 , r) eoprrj tojv aZvfxwv t) Xeyofxevt] rrdaxa, 
"which is called Easter," where, however, the Geneva and Bishops' Bibles 
substitute "Passover." 



140 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

century, when the lord lieutenant of Ireland was styled dep- 
uty, the Word would convey a sufficiently precise idea ; but 
now it suggests a wrong conception, if it suggests any at allr 
What sense, for instance, can an English reader attach to the 
words " The law is open, and there are deputies" (Acts xix., 
38), which in the Authorized Version are given as the ren- 
dering of ayopaioi ixyovTai* Kal avQvTraroi elcriv? The term which 
in the 19th century corresponds most nearly to the deputy 
of 16th is lieutenant governor, and indeed the Geneva Testa- 
ment did in one passage (Acts xviii.,12) translate avdv-rraroQ 
by "lieutenant of the country," but this rendering was drop- 
ped in the Geneva Bible, and not taken up again. To this 
precise language, however, exception might be taken ; and if 
so, we should be obliged to fall back on some general term, 
such as " governor," " chief magistrate," or the like. With 
the rendering of ypa/jfia-evc, " town clerk," in Acts xix., 35,1 
should not be disposed to find fault, for it is difficult to sug- 
gest a more exact equivalent. In the context of the same 
passage, however (ver. 31), an English reader would not un- 
derstand that the "chiefs of Asia" were officers appointed to 
preside at the festivals, and perhaps "presidents of Asia" 
might be substituted with advantage (for the word occurs in 
the English Bible), though it is impossible entirely to remove 
an obscurity which exists also in the Greek 'Amapxne. In 
Rom. xvi., 23, the substitution of " treasurer" for "chamber- 
lain" in the rendering of 6 okovofioQ rfjg ttoXeojq would be an im- 
provement ;f for " treasurer," again, is a good Biblical word, 
and we do not use " chamberlain" to describe such an officer 
as is here intended.^ ^ 

* Why the slovenly translation, "the law is open," should have been al- 
lowed to remain, it is difficult to see. In the margin our translators suggest 
"the court days are kept." They would have earned our gratitude if in this 
and other cases they had acted with more boldness, and placed in the text 
the more correct renderings which they have been content to suggest in the 
margin. 

f Wicliffehas "treasurer," the Eheims Version "cofferer," while the ver- 
sions of the Eeformed Church render it " chamberlain." 

X Perhaps I ought to except the Chamberlain of the City of London. 



TREATMENT OF PROPER NAMES, ETC. \±\ 

On the whole, however, the rendering of official titles in 
our version is fairly adequate, and can not be much improved. 
If there is occasionally some inconsistency and want of meth- 
od, as, for instance, when yjXiapxog is translated " chief cap- 
tain," and eKarovrapxog reproduced as " centurion" in the same 
context* (Acts xxi., 31,32; xxii., 24-26; xxiii., 17-23), still 
these renderings have established a prescriptive right, and an 
adequate reason must be shown for disturbing them. In Acts 
xvi., 35, 38, pafidov-xpi, " lictors," is well rendered " sergeants ;" 
and in xxviii., 16, the translation of (TTpaTOTrelap^c, the prcefec- 
tus prcetorio, as " captain of the guard," is a great improve- 
ment on the less precise renderings of the earlier versions ; 
" chief captain of the host" (Tyndale, Great Bible, Bishops'), 
"chief captain" (Coverdale)," general captain" (Geneva); and, 
with the addition of one word, might very well stand," chief 
captain (or captain general) of the guard." On the other 
hand, in Mark vi., 27, (meKovXaTiop, which signifies "a soldier 
of the guard," should not have been rendered " executioner" 
(in the earlier versions it is "hangman"), for this term de- 
scribes a mere accident of his office. 

But if official titles are, on the whole, fairly rendered, this 
is not the case with another class of technical terms denoting 
coins, weights, and measures. 

As regards coins, the smaller pieces are more adequately 
translated than the larger. No better rendering than " mite" 
is possible for Xett-op, or than " farthing" for Kohpavrrjc, " quad- 
rans ;" and the relation of the two coins is thus preserved 
(Mark xii., 42, XeTtra dvo, 6 kanv Kocpdv-rjo). But from this point 
the inadequacy and inconsistency begin. Why aaaapiov, the 
late Greek diminutive used for the as, of which, therefore, the 
Kocpar-ec is a fourth part, should still be translated &fartliing\ 
(which elsewhere represents Kolpavrr\o) rather than a penny, 

* Some of the older versions translate the words "upper" or "high cap- 
tain," and "under captain," respectively. 

t In Matt, x., 29, the Geneva Testament (1557) had rendered daadpiov by 
a halfpenny (as Wicliffe), and similarly dvo deodpia, in Luke xii., 6, by a 
penny. The rest give it a farthing, as in the A.V. 



142 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

it is difficult to see (Matt, x., 29 ; Luke xii., 6). And, as we 
advance in the scale, the disproportion between the value of 
the original coin and the English substitute increases. Thus 
the denarius, a silver piece of the value originally often and 
afterward of sixteen ases, is always rendered a penny. Its 
absolute value, as so much weight in metal, is as nearly as 
possible the same as the French franc. Its relative value as 
a purchasing power, in an age and a country where provi- 
sions were much cheaper, w T as considerably more. Now it 
so happens that in almost every case where the word Srjvapiov 
occurs in the New Testament it is connected with- the idea 
of a liberal or large amount, and yet in these passages the En- 
glish rendering names a sum which is absurdly small. Thus 
the Good Samaritan, whose generosity is intended to appear 
throughout, on leaving, takes out "two pence," and gives 
them to the innkeeper to supply the farther wants of the 
wounded man. Thus, again, the owner of the vineyard, whose 
liberality is contrasted with the niggardly, envious spirit, the 
" evil eye" of others, gives, as a day's wages, a penny to each 
man. It is unnecessary to ask what impression the mention 
of this sum will leave on the minds of an uneducated peasant 
or shopkeeper of the present day. Even at the time when 
our version was made, and when wages were lower, it must 
have seemed wholly inadequate.* The inadequacy again ap- 
pears, though not so prominently, in the two hundred pence, 
the sum named as insufficient to supply bread to the five 
thousand (Mark vi., 37; John vi., 1), and similarly in other 
cases (e. g., Mark xiv., 5 ; John xii., 5 ; Luke vii., 41). Lastly, 
in the Book of the Revelation (vi., 6), the announcement, 
which in the original implies famine prices, is rendered in our 

* The rendering "a penny" was probably handed down in this familiar 
parable from the time when this sum would be no inadequate remuneration 
for a day's labor ; but long before the Versions of the Reformed Church were 
made, this had ceased to be the case. Even in Henry the VTIIth's reign -a 
laborer earned from sixpence to eightpence a day (Froude, i., p. 29 seq.), 
though after the Restoration the rate of wages does not seem to have ad- 
vanced much upon this amount (see Macaulay, i , p. 413). 



THE A TMENT OF PE OPEB NAMES, ETC. 143 

English Version "A measure of wheat for a penny, and three 
measures of barley for a penny." The fact is that the word 
\oivit,, here translated " measure," falls below the amount of 
a quart, while the word drjvapiou, here translated " a penny," 
approaches toward the value of a shilling. To the English 
reader the words must convey the idea of enormous plenty.* 
Another word, drachma, occurs in the parable of the lost 
money in St. Luke xv., 8, 9, where it is translated piece of sil- 
ver. Yet the Greek drachma is so nearly equal in value to 
the Roman denarius, that it may be questioned whether the 
same coin is not meant by both terms ;f and, if piece of .silver 
or silver piece is a reasonable translation of drachma, it might 
very well be employed to render denarius. Again, in the in- 
cident relating to the tribute-money (Matt, xvii., 24 seq.), 
mention is made of two different coins or sums of money, the 
didrachma and the stater, the latter being double of the for- 
mer ; and this relation of value is important, and should have 
been preserved if possible, because it explains our Lord's 
words, "Take it (the stater), and give unto them for me and 
for thee.'''' In our version, however, didrachma is rendered 
" tribute-money, tribute," and stater " a piece of money." Of 
larger amounts, mina (/^a) is translated a " pound" in one 
parable (Luke xix., 13),J while in two others (Matt, xviii., 24 
seq.; xxv.,14 seq.) talent is allowed to stand. From the lat- 
ter of- these comes the secondary metaphorical sense of the 

* A "measure" in some parts of England is or was equivalent to a Win- 
chester bushel. At all events, it would suggest a large rather than a small 
quantity. 

t See Plin., N.H., xxi.,109: "Drachma Attica denarii argentei hahet pon- 
dus. " This parable does not occur in St. Matthew and St. Mark, and must 
have been derived by St. Luke from some independent source. Hence, as ad- 
dressing Greek readers chiefly, he would not unnaturally name a Greek coin 
in preference. Similarly it was seen above (p. 102) that opuvrj is confined to 
St. Luke in that portion of his narrative which does not run parallel with the 
other two evangelists. 

% The Wicliffite Versions have " besaunt" for \xva here ; but the careless- 
ness with which the word is used appears from the fact that they employ it 
also to render drachma on the one hand (Luke xv., 8), and talentum on the 
other (Matt, xviii., 24 |"v. 1.] ; xxv., 16). 

1ST 



144 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

word "talent," which has entirely superseded the literal mean- 
ing in common language. 

The treatment of measures, again, is extremely loose. The 
Herprjriig, indeed, is fairly rendered " firkin" in John ii., 6 ; and 
the modius appears as "bushel" (Matt, v., 15; Mark iv.,21; 
Luke xi., 33), where the English measure, though greatly in 
excess of the Latin, which is about a peck, may neverthe- 
less remain undisturbed, since nothing depends on exactness. 
With these exceptions, the one word " measure" is made to 
do duty for all the terms which occur in the original. Thus, 
in Rev. vi., 6, already quoted, it stands for a x°~ tvl ^ something 
under a quart ; and in other passages it represents not less 
than three Hebrew measures, the adrov, or seah (Matt, xiii., 
33 ; Luke xiii., 21), the /3aroe, the bath, or ephah, and the ko- 
poc, the cor or homer (both in Luke xvi., 6, 7), though the 
seah is one third of the bath, and the bath one tenth of the 
cor. In the former of these two passages from the Gospels 
accuracy is unimportant, for the " three measures of meal" in 
the parable will tell their tale equally, whatever may be the 
contents of the measure ; though even here we may regret 
that our translators deserted the more precise "peck," which 
they found in some of the older versions. But in Luke xvi., 
6, 7, where the bath and the cor are mentioned in the same 
context, they should certainly be distinguished. The Kopoi 
(jitov might very well be rendered " quarters of wheat" with 
Tyndale and several of the older versions. For the jjcltol i\a- 
iov it is more difficult to find an equivalent : Wicliffe renders 
[3uTovQ by "barrels ;" the Rheims Version by " pipes." In Rev. 
vi., 6, it is still more important to aim at precision, because 
the extremity of the famine only appears when the proper re- 
lation between the measure and the price is preserved. Here 
yoivil might very well be translated " a quart." 

§7. 
This discussion has been occupied hitherto with questions 
affecting the correctness of our version as representing the 



ARCHAISMS, DEFECTS IN THE ENGLISH, ETC. 145 

Greek. It remains to consider the English in itself, as a lit- 
erary production rather than as a translation, and to ask how 
far it is capable of amendment from this point of view. 

And here I certainly am not disposed to dissent from the 
universal verdict, in which those least disposed to stubborn 
conservatism have most heartily concurred, and which has 
been reasserted only the more emphatically since the ques- 
tion of revision was started ; but those who, having studied 
our English Version most carefully, and therefore have en- 
tered most fully into its singular merits, will be the least dis- 
posed to deny that here and there the reviser's hand may be 
employed with advantage. 

Under this head the archaisms demand to be considered 
first. "Whatever may have been the feeling in generations 
past, there is no disposition in the present age to alter the 
character of bur version. The stately rhythm and the archa- 
ic coloring are alike sacred in the eyes of all English-speak- 
ing peoples. On the other hand, it must be borne in mind 
that our version addresses itself not to archaeologists and crit- 
ics, but to plain folk; and these two considerations combined 
should guide the pen of the reviser. So long as an archaism 
is intelligible, let it by all means be retained. If it is mis- 
leading, or ambiguous, or inarticulate, the time for removing 
it has come. 

As examples of innocent archaisms we might quote "be- 
wray," "despite," "list," "strait," "travail," "twain," and 
hundreds of others. Whether it would be necessary to wring 
the heart of the archaeologist by removing " all to brake" and 
" earing," we need not stop to consider, as they do not occur 
in the New Testament. 

If, on the other hand, I were asked to point out a guilty 
archaism, I should lay my finger at once on the translation 
of fiEptfivav in Matt, vi., 25, 31, 34, firj fiEpifivare rrj \pv\y vfiCjv ri 
<payr}-e, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat;" ^) 
lxepi^p{]crr}-£ Xeyovreg ri Qayw fiEv, "Take no thought, saying What 
shall we eat?" p) jufpi/zv//o-r/-£ eic ty\v avpiov, "Take no thought 



146 LIQHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

for the morrow." I have heard of a political economist al- 
leging this passage as an objection to the moral teaching of 
the Sermon on the Mount on the ground that it encouraged, 
nay, commanded a reckless neglect of the future. I have 
known of cases in which scrupulous consciences have been 
troubled by language seeming to condemn their most reason- 
able acts of care and forethought ; of others in which relig- 
ious persons have been misled by this paramount authority 
(as it seemed to be) into a systematic improvidence. A 
knowledge of the Greek would have shown that it is not rea- 
sonable forethought, but distress and anxiety about the fu- 
ture, which our Lord forbids ; for this, and not less than this, 
is the force of fiepifiva, as may be seen from such passages as 
1 Pet. v., 7, icaoav rr\v /xepifivav v/jlwv £7Tipi\pavr£g ett avrov, on 
av-u) fxiXei tteoX vfxior, where the distinction of ^ipLfiva and fiiXuv 
is significant, though effaced in our English Version, " Cast- 
ing all your care upon him, for he careih for you." A study 
of English archaisms, again, would have taught that our trans- 
lators did not intend what they seem to say, for to " take 
thought" in the old language meant to distress or trouble 
one's self.* But the great mass of people have neither the 
time nor the opportunity, even if they had the capacity, for 
such investigations. This archaism, therefore, is one which, 
at all hazards, should disappear in any revision of the En- 
glish Bible. For " take no thought" some have suggested 
" be not careful." But this, though an improvement, is very 
far from adequate. For carefulness, though in the 16th and 
17th centuries it might be a term of reproof,f in the modern 

* e. g., 1 Sam. ix., 5, " Come, and let us return, lest my father .... take 
thought for us," where the Hebrew verb is aWl, which Gesenius renders sol- 
Ucitusfuit, anxie timuit. "To die of thought" in the old language was to 
die heart-broken. On this archaism, see Trench, Authorized Version, p. 37 ; 
Wright, Bible Word-Book, s. v. 

t In fact, it is used more than once to translate this very word pepi/iva ; 
e. g., 1 Cor. vii., 32, " I would have you without carefulness ," i. e., anxiety 
(Qe\(*) vfxag apepifivovg elvai) ; Phil, iv., 6, "Be careful for nothing" (fxrjdiv 
fXipifxvaTt). 

Latimer, Serm., p. 400 (quoted in Wright's Bible Word-Book, s. v.), speaks 



ARCHAISMS, DEFECTS IN THE ENGLISH, ETC. 147 

language almost always implies commendation. In fact, it 
is an archaism open to the same misapprehension, though not 
to the same degree, as "take no thought." "Be not anxious" 
or " be not troubled" would adequately express the original. 
The word " anxious," it is true, does not occur in our English 
Bible, but this is one of those rare instances where our new 
revisers might well assume the liberty, which the authors of 
the Received Version certainly claimed and exercised before 
them, of introducing a new word where the language has 
shifted and no old word conveys the exact meaning. 

But, though " take no thought" is the worst offender of all, 
yet other archaisms might with advantage be removed. We 
may suspect that many an Englishman, when he hears of 
Zacharias " asking for a writing table (Luke i., 63)," conceives 
a notion very different from the evangelist's own meaning. 
We have heard how the inquiring school-boy has been jDer- 
plexed at reading that St. Paul and his companions '"''fetched 
a compass" when they set sail from Syracuse (Acts xxviii., 
13), not being able to reconcile this statement with the date 
given for the invention of this instrument. We can well im- 
agine that not a few members of an average congregation, 
when the incident in the synagogue at Nazareth is read, and 
they hear that the book, when closed, is handed " to the min- 
ister" (Luke iv., 20), do not carry away quite the correct idea 
of the person intended by this expression. We must have 
misgivings whether our Lord's injunction to the disciples to 
" take no scrip" with them, or St. Luke's statement that the 
apostle's company " took up their carriages and went up to 
Jerusalem" (Acts xxi., 15), are universally understood. We 
may feel quite certain that the great majority of readers do 
not realize the fact (for how should they ?) that by the high- 
est and the lowest rooms in the parable are meant merely 
the places or seats* at the top or bottom of the same table, 

of "this wicked carefulness," an expression which in the modern language 
Avould be a contradiction in terms. 

* Again, in 1 Cor. xiv., 16, "He that occvpieth the room of the unlearned," 



148 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

and that therefore the invitation to " go up higher" does not 
imply mounting a staircase to a more dignified reception- 
room in the upper story. We find that even a scholarly di- 
vine* seems to infer from St. Paul's language that (l Tim. v., 4) 
the duty incumbent not only on children, but even on neph- 
ews, of providing for their aged relations ; and finding this, 
we can hardly expect illiterate persons to know that in the 
old language nephew signifies grandchild. 

Among these misleading archaisms the word coast for "bor- 
der" or " region" is perhaps the most frequent. It would be 
unreasonable to expect the English reader to understand that 
when St. Paul " passes through the upper coasts" (to. avwrepi- 
kcl niprj) on his way to Ephesus (Acts xix., 1), he does in fact 
traverse the high land which lies in the interior of Asia Mi- 
nor. Again, in the Gospels, when he reads of our Lord visit- 
ing "the coasts of Tyre and Sidon" (Matt, xv.,21; Mark vii., 
31), he naturally thinks of the sea-board, knowing these to 
be maritime cities, whereas the word in one passage stands 
for fiipr], " parts," and in the other for Bpia, " borders," and the 
circumstances suggest rather the eastern than the western 
frontier of the region. And perhaps also his notions of the 
geography of Palestine may be utterly confused by reading 
that Capernaum is situated "upon the sea-coast" (Matt, iv., 
13). 

Then, again, how is such a person to know that when St. 
Paul condemns " debate" together with envy, wrath, murder, 
and the like (Rom. i., 29 ; 2 Cor. xii., 20), he denounces not dis- 
cussion, but contention, strife (eptg) ; or that when he says, "If 
any man have a quarrel against any" (Col. iii.,13) he means 
a complaint (querela), the original being exy fiofi^ijv; or that, 
when St. James writes "Grudge not one against another" (v., 
9), the word signifies " murmur" or " bemoan" (areva^erE) ? 

a double archaism obscures the sense of the original 6 avct7r\npu>v rbv tottov, 
" He that Jilleth the place." 

* Blunt, Church of the First Three Centuries, p. 27," She was to have none 
of those children able to minister to her, nor yet nephews." See Trench's 
Authorized Version, p. 41. 



ARCHAISMS, DEFECTS IN THE ENGLISH, ETC. 149 

Even if he is aware that "wicked lewdness" (Acts xviii., 14) 
does not signify gross sensuality, will he also know converse- 
ly that by " the hidden things of dishonesty" (2 Cor. iv., 2) 
the apostle means not fraudulence, want of probity, but " se- 
cret deeds of shame" (alaxvvr)c) ? If context and common 
sense alike teach him that the " highmindedness" which St. 
Paul more than once condemns (v^rjXocppovelv, Rom. xi., 20 ; 1 
Tim. vi.,17; rervcpo) pivot, 2 Tim. iii., 4) is not what we com- 
monly understand by .the term, will he also perceive that the 
"maliciousness" which is denounced alike by St. Paul (Rom. 
i., 29," full of maliciousness") andSt.Peter (1 Pet, ii.,16,"not 
using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness") does not de- 
note one special form of evil, but the vicious character gen- 
erally (raa'a) ? 

Again, the expressions instantly and by-and-by may be 
taken in connection, as being nearly allied ; yet in Biblical 
language neither signifies what it would signify to ourselves. 
Instantly has not a temporal sense at all, but means "urgent- 
ly," as in Luke vii., 4, " They besought him instantly (airov- 
haiu)c) ;" while, on the other hand, by-and-by, having a tem- 
poral sense, denotes not deferred, but immediate action, stand- 
ing most frequently for evQvq or zvOeioc, and therefore corre- 
sponding to the modern sense of instantly. Thus, in the 
Greek of the parable of the sower, the instantaneous welcome 
of the word has its counterpart in the instantaneous apostasy 
under persecution (Matt, xiii., 20, 21), evdve /xera x a j°«£ ^ ft i"" 
fiavuv clvtov, evOvg crtcavoaXi^Erai ; but in the English Version 
this appears, "Anon with joy receiveth it," "By-and-by he is 
offended," where, partly through the archaisms and partly 
through the change of words, the expressiveness of the orig- 
inal is seriously blunted. 

The passage last quoted contains another archaism, which 
is a type of a whole class. Words derived from the Latin 
and other foreign languages, being comparatively recent, had 
very frequently not arrived at their ultimate sense when our 
version was made, and were more liable to shift their mean- 



150 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

ing than others. We have witnessed this phenomenon in in- 
stantly ', and the same was also the case with offend, offence. 
"If thy right eye offend thee," " Woe unto him through 
whom the offences come," do not convey to any but the ed- 
ucated reader the idea which they were intended to express. 
By substituting " cause to offend" (or perhaps " cause to 
stumble" or "to fall") for "offend," we may, in passages where 
the verb occurs, bring out the idea more clearly ♦ but in the 
case of the substantive, the right of prescription and the dif- 
ficulty of finding an equivalent may plead for the retention 
of the word. But where other Latinisms are concerned no 
such excuse can be pleaded. Thus, " Occupy till I come" 
(7T|oay/mr£waff0£,Luke xix.,13), is quite indefensible. Wicliffe 
has marchaiindise ; Purvey chaffer; Tyndale buy and sell ; 
and it is difficult to see why a word should have been substi- 
tuted in the later Bibles, which must (one would think) have 
appeared novel and affected at the time, and which has 
changed its meaning since. I have suggested " Trade ye" 
above (p. 52). Another example is " O generation (yerv^a-a) 
of vipers," which the English reader inevitably takes to be a 
parallel expression to " a wicked and adulterous generation 
(yevea)" though the Greek words are quite different, and gen- 
eration in the first passage signifies " offspring" or " brood" 
— two good old English words, either of which might advan- 
tageously be substituted for it. Another is the rendering of 
Acts xvii., 23, "As I passed by and beheld your devotions" 
(<T£J3a(TfiaTa), where " your devotions" is not a misrendering, 
but an archaism, signifying " the objects of your worship," 
" your gods or idols." Other instances, again, are 1 Tim. iii., 
13, " They that have used the office of a deacon well, purchase 
(TrepL7roiovvrai) to themselves a good degree," where the idea 
of traffic suggested by the modern use of the word is alien to 
the passage ; and Matt, xvii., 25, " When he was gone into the 
house, Jesus prevented {-n-poi^daffEv) him, saying, What think- 
est thou, Simon ?" in which passage, at all events, the orig- 
inal meaning of " prevent" would not suggest itself to the 



ARCHAISMS, DEFECTS IN THE ENGLISH, ETC. \ 5 1 

English reader. In both cases we might with advantage re- 
cur to the renderings of Tyndale, " get" for " purchase," and 
" spake first" for " prevented." 

From the word last mentioned we pass not unnaturally to 
the verb which it has supplanted. To prevent has taken the 
place of to let, meaning to check, to hinder, while this latter 
verb has become obsolete in this sense. Unnecessary and 
unadvisable as it would be to alter this archaism in such 
phrases as " Sore let and hindered in running the race that is 
set before us," where it can not mislead,, its occurrence in the 
New Testament is not always free from objection. In 2 Thess. 
ii., 7, for instance — a passage difficult enough without any ar- 
tificial obscurities — "He who now letteth, will let" should not 
be allowed to stand. 

Not very dissimilar to the last instance is the ambiguity 
of "go about," used in our version as a common rendering of 
£r]TEiv. In such passages as John vii., 19, 20, "Why go ye 
about to kill me ?" " Who goeth about to kill thee ?" Acts xxi., 
31, "As they went about to kill him," it can hardly occur to 
the English reader that nothing more is meant than " seek 
to kill," as the same phrase lr\rfiv a-KOKrCivai is translated else- 
where, and even in the very context of the first passage (John 
vii., 25). In Acts xxiv., 5, 6, again, the misunderstanding is 
rendered almost inevitable by the context, "A mover of se- 
dition amonu; all the Jews throughout the world . . . who 
also hath gone about to profane the Temple ;" where the ex- 
pression represents another verb similar to 'Cr\-Elv in meaning, 
to lepov ETreipacTEv j3ej3t]\u><Tai. 

After disposing of the archaisms, little remains to be said 
about the English of our version. There are, however, some 
ambiguities of translation which arise from other causes. 
Thus Ephes. vi., 12, "Against spiritual icickedness in high 
places" (jrpoQ ra 7ivtvp.aTiKa rijg Trovqpiaq kv roig eTrovpavioio), 
where the English reader is led to think of vice in persons 
of rank and station; Phil, iii., 14, "The prize of your high 
calling (rfjg avoj K\ri<T£u)g)" where the English epithet rather 



152 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

suggests quality than locality, as the original requires; CoL 
iii., 8, " But now you also put off all these" (wvl he airodeade 
rat v/jleHq rk ttclvto)^ where the sentence appears to be indica- 
tive instead of imperative ; 1 Tim. iii., 16, "And without con- 
troversy (ofioXoyovfiivojg) great is the mystery of godliness," 
where the meaning of "controversy" is ambiguous, and where 
the older versions translated b^oXoyovfiivujQ " without nay" or 
"without doubt ;" Heb. v., 2, " On the ignorant and on them 
that are out of the way" (toIq ayvoovat rat 7r\a^w fxiroig), where 
the repetition of the preposition leads the English reader still 
farther away from the proper sense of 7rXa viofiivoic ; Heb. v., 
12, "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers" (rat yap 
6(j)EiXovT£g elrai didaaicaXoL hta rov ypovov), where without the 
Greek no one would imagine that " for the time" means " by 
reason of the long period of your training;" Apoc. iv.,11, 
" For thy pleasure they are, and were created (elal rat eKriadr}- 
aav)"* where are reads as an auxiliary. In all such cases 
(and many other examples might be given) the remedy is 
easy. 

The great merit of our version is its truly English charac- 
ter — the strength and the homeliness of its language. Its 
authors were fully alive to the importance of preserving this 
feature, as impressed upon the English Bible by Tyndale, and 
set their faces resolutely against the Latinisms to which the 
Rheims Version had attempted to give currency. f In this 
they were eminently successful as a rule, and it is only to be 
regretted that they allowed themselves occasionally to de- 
part from their principle where there was no adequate need. 
The word occupy, which I have already considered from a 
different point of view, is an illustration. Another is addict 
in 1 Cor. xvi., 15, " They have addicted themselves (eVafcv 

* So the received text ; but the correct reading is rjaav for tlal. 

t In this version I open a chapter accidentally (Ephes. iv. ), and find ' ' do- 
nation of Christ," "inferior parts," "doctors," "circumvention of errour," 
"juncture of subministration," " vanity of their sense," "impudicity," " con- 
tristate." Yet it was published nearly thirty years before the Authorized 
Version. 



ARCHAISMS, DEFECTS IN THE ENGLISH, ETC 153 

eolvtovq) to the ministry of the saints," which rendering seems 
to have been introduced first in the Bishops' Bible, and can 
not be considered an improvement on the Geneva Version, 
"They have given themselves to minister unto the saints." 
A more flagrant instance is 2 Cor. ix.,13, where a concurrence 
of Latinisms obscures the sense and mars the English, " By 
the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your 
professed subjection unto the Gospel of Christ," where " ex- 
periment" and " professed" ought at all events to be altered, 
as they have shifted their meaning, and where for once the 
Rheims Version gives purer English, " By the proof of this 
ministry glorifying God in the obedience of your confession 
unto the Gospel of Christ" (eta Trjg doKifirjg Trjg ciaKovtag Tavrrjg 
co^cl^ovteq tov Qebv eit\ rr) v7rorayrj rf]g dfioXoylag vjj.u>v tig to evay- 
yiXiov tov XjOtoroi;). 

A fault of another kind is translating ocpeXov " I would to 
God" (1 Cor. iv.j 8), though the earlier versions all give it so 
with the exception of Wicliffe, whose simpler rendering "I 
would" might be adopted with advantage. In this case the 
introduction of the divine name is hardly defensible. In the 
case of fxr) yevotTo, " God forbid," the difficulty of finding an- 
other idiomatic rendering may possibly excuse it. Yet even 
here we can not but regret a rendering which interferes so 
seriously with the argument, as it presents itself to the En- 
glish reader, in such passages as Rom. iii., 4, 6, " God forbid ; 
yea, let God be true (fir) yivoiTO, yweadio he 6 Qeog a\r}d)ig) ," 
"God forbid, for then how shall God judge the world (p) ye- 

VOITO, £7T£t 7TU>g KplVEl 6 Qeog TOV KOGfJIOv) ?" 

I shall pass over instances of careless grammar in the En- 
glish, because these are not numerous, and have been dealt 
with elsewhere. But it may be worth while to point out in- 
advertences of another kind — where the same word is twice 
rendered in the English Version, or where conversely the same 
English word is made to do duty for two Greek words. Of 
the latter, examples occur in John xi., 14, "Then {tote.ovv) 
said Jesus unto them plainly," where " then" stands for two 



154 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

words, " then" local and " then" argumentative ; or Rom. vi., 
21, "What fruit had ye then (rlva olv Kapwov e^ere tote) in 
those things whereof ye are now ashamed ?" where exactly 
the same error is committed. Of the converse error — the 
double rendering of the same word — we have an instance in 
James V. } 16, 7ro\v Xayyei Zir\aic, (Jacaiov ivepyovjjievr^ " The effect- 
ual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much," where 
the word " effectual" is worse than superfluous. This last ren- 
dering I am disposed to ascribe to carelessness in correcting 
the copy for the press. The word would be written down on 
the copy of the Bishops' Bible which the revisers used either 
as a tentative correction or an accidental gloss, and, not hav- 
ing been erased before the copy was sent to the press, would 
appear in the text.* 

To the same cause, also, we may perhaps ascribe the ren- 
dering of 1 Cor. xiv., 23, lav olv rrvviXQr) >/ EKKXrjtrla oXt) eirl to 
avro. In the Bishops' Bible this stands, "If therefore all the 
Church be come together into one place," but in the Author- 
ized, " If therefore the whole Church be come together into 
some place." I presume that the revisers intended to alter 
"one" into "the same," but that this correction was indis- 
tinctly made, and being confused with the other correction in 
the same clause which required a transposition of " the," led 
to the error which stands in our text. What misconception 
may arise from a mere error of the press appears from the 
often discussed phrase, " Strain at a gnat," where unquestion- 
ably our translators intended to retain the rendering of the 
earlier versions, " Strain out a gnat," and the existing text can 
only be explained as a misprint. Indeed, the printing of the 
edition of 1611 is very far from correct; and if our present 

* In the Bishops' Bihle, which the translators had before them, the passage 
runs, " The fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." The only fact 
connected with previous versions which I can discover as throwing any light 
on the insertion of this word "effectual" is a marginal note in Tomson's 
New Testament, printed with the Geneva Bible: "He commendeth prayers 
by the effects that come of them, that all men may understand that there is 
nothing more effectual than they are, so that they proceed from a pure mind." 



ARCHAISMS, DEFECTS IN THE ENGLISH, ETC. 155 

Bibles for the most part deserve praise for great accuracy, 
we owe this to the fact that the text of this first edition was 
not regarded as sacred or authoritative, but corrections were 
freely introduced afterwards wherever a plain error was de- 
tected. Thus, in Exod. xxxviii., U,"Hoopes of the pillars" 
has been altered into "hooks of the pillars;" in Isaiah xlix., 
20, "The place is too straight" into "The place is too strait;" 
in Hos. vi., 5, "Shewed them by the prophets" (where the 
word " shewed" was evidently introduced by an ingenious 
compositor who did not understand the correct text) into 
"Hewed them by the prophets ;" in Ecclus. xliv., 5, "Rejected 
verses" into "recited verses;" and the like. In the headings 
of the chapters, too, some curious errors in the edition of 1611 
were afterwards corrected: e.g., 2 Sam. xxiv., "eleven thou- 
sand" into " thirteen hundred thousand ;" 1 Cor. v., " shamed" 
into "shunned."* Nay, in some passages the changes made 
in later editions are even bolder than this, as, for instance, in 
1 Tim. i., 4, okoSofjiiav [the correct reading is ohovojiiav] Qeov 
rrjv kv 7riarei, " Edifying which is in faith," the word Qeov by 
some inadvertence was untranslated in the edition of 1611, 
and so it remained for many years afterwards, until in the 
Cambridge edition of 1638 "godly" was inserted after the 
earlier versions, and this has held its ground ever since.f As 
this wise liberty was so freely exercised in other cases, it is 
strange that the obvious misprint " strain at" should have 
survived the successive revisions of two centuries and a half. 

* The corrections in Ecclus. xliv., 5, 2 Sam. xxiv., were made in 1612 ; 
those in Exod. xxxviii., 11, Isa. xlix., 20, Hos. vi., 5, 1 Cor. v., in 1613. A 
number of errors, however, still remained, which were removed from time to 
time in later editions. The edition of 1613, though it corrected some blun- 
ders, was grossly inaccurate, as may be seen from the collation with the edi- 
tion of 1611 prefixed to the Oxford reprint of the latter (1833). 

t I owe this fact, which has probably been noticed elsewhere, to some val- 
uable MS. notes of the late Prof. Grote on the printing of the English Bible. 
The error may be explained by supposing that the word "godly" was struck 
out in the copy of the Bishops' Bible altered for the press, while the proposed 
substitution was omitted to be made, or was made in such a way that it es- 
caped the eye of the compositor. 



156 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

While speaking of errors and corrections of the press, it 
may be worth while, in passing, to observe how this license of 
change has affected the orthography. It would be a surprise 
to an English reader now to find in his Bible such words as 
aliant, causey, charet, cise, crudle, damosell, fauchion, fet, fift, 
flixe, iland,mids, rnoe, monethes, neesing, oweth (Lev.xiv.,35, 
for " owneth"), price (Phil, iii., 14, for " prize"), renowme, etc. 
While these have been altered into alien, causeway, chariot, 
size, curdle, damsel, falchion, fetched, fifth, flux, island, midst, 
more, months, sneezing, owneth, prize, renown, respectively, 
a capricious conservatism has retained the archaic spelling in 
other cases, such as fat, fetches, graff, hoise, pilled, strawed, 
throughly, for vat, vetches, graft, hoist, peeled, strewed, thor- 
oughly. In some cases this caprice appears in the same word ; 
thus neesings is retained in Job xli., 18, while sneezed is sub- 
stituted for neesed in 2 Kings iv., 35. This license has had its 
disadvantages as well as its advantages ; if the substitution 
of " its" for " it" (Lev. xxv., 5, " it owne accord," 1611*) was 
imperatively demanded by the change in the language, the 
alteration of " shamefast, shamefastness" into " shamefaced, 
shamefacedness" is unfortunate, as suggesting a wrong deri- 
vation and an inadequate meaning. Amid all these changes 
it is a happy accident that the genuine form of the name of 
Philemon's wife has survived, though the precedent of the 
older versions and the authority of modern commentators 
alike would have led to the substitution of the Latin name 
" Appia" for the Phrygian " Apphia."f 

* See Wright's Bible Word- Book, s.v. It. 

t In Philem. 2 the reading is unquestionably 'A-n-tpia, though some uncial 
MSS. (of little value on a point of orthography) have d(p^ia,& legitimate form, 
or a.fi<f>iq., a manifest corruption : the authority for 'ATririct is absolutely worth- 
less. The fact is, that this word has no connection (except in sound) with the 
Roman Appia, but represents a native Phrygian name, which, with various 
modifications, appears again and again in the Phrygian inscriptions : e.g., 
Boeckh, Corp. Inscr., 3814, Nf iKavSpog icai 'A^xpia yvvrj avrov ; 3826, IIpa>r6- 
fxaxoQ ' A<p\jp]i(j, yvvaiKi ; 3932 m, ry yvvauci avrov 'A\jr](pia. ; 3962, 'A7r<pia 
syo> KH/xai; 3827 l(Appx.), 'Atycpia Mevavdpov , 3846 z (Appx. ), BwXac 'A<p<pia. 
avvftiijj. Frequently, also, we meet with the diminutive arttyiov, d(p<piov, or 



PROSPECTS OF THE NEW REVISION: 



157 



V. 

I have attempted to show in what directions our English 
Version is capable of improvement. It will be necessary to 
substitute an amended for a faulty text ; to remove artificial 
distinctions which do not exist in the Greek ; to restore real 
distinctions which, existing there, were overlooked by our 
translators ; to correct errors of grammar and errors of lexi- 
cography ; to revise the treatment of proper names and tech- 
nical terms ; and to remove a few archaisms, ambiguities, and 
faults of expression, besides inaccuracies of editorship, in the 
English. All this may be done without altering the character 
of the version. 

In this review of the question I have done nothing more 
than give examples of the different classes of errors. An 
exhaustive treatment of the subject was impossible ; and the 
case, therefore, is much stronger than it is here made to ap- 
pear. If, for instance, any one will take the trouble to go 
through some one book of the New Testament, as the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, referring to any recent critical edition of the 
Greek text and comparing it carefully with the English, he 
will see that the faults of our version are very far from being 
few and slight, or imaginary. But, if a fair case for revision 
has been made out, it still remains to ask whether there is 
any reasonable prospect of success if the attempt be made at 
the present time. 

Now in one important point — perhaps the most important 
of all — the answer must, I think, be favorable. Greek schol- 

acpiov, as a female name: e.g., 3849, 3891, 3899, 3902 m, 3846 z (Appx.). 
The form "Kir-Kt], however, sometimes occurs. This word may be compared 
with other common Phrygian names, Ammia, Nania, Tatia, and the masculine 
Pappias or Papias. 

Not observing the Phrygian origin of the name, the commentators speak as 
though it were the feminine corresponding to the masculine in Acts xxviii., 
15, 'Ainriov tpopov, and call attention to the difference in form, ircp for tctz. 
All the older translations, so far as I have observed, print it Appia, so that 
the Authorized Version stands alone in its correctness. 



158 LIQHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

raship lias never stood higher in England than it does at the 
present moment. There is not only a sufficient body of 
scholars capable of undertaking the work, but there is also 
(and this is a most important element in the consideration) 
a very large number besides fully competent to submit the 
work of the revisers, when completed, to a minute and search- 
ing criticism. And, though we may trust that any one who 
is called to take his share in the work will do so with a deep 
sense of the responsibility of the task assigned to him, still it 
will be a great stimulus to feel that he is surrounded by com- 
petent critics on all sides, and a great support to be able to 
gather opinions freely from without. But I would venture 
to go a step beyond this. I should be glad to think my ap- 
prehensions groundless, but there is at least some reason to 
forebode that Greek scholarship has reached its height in En- 
gland, and that henceforth it may be expected to decline.* 
The clamors of other branches of learning — more especially 
of scientific studies — for a recognized place in general educa- 
tion are growing louder and louder, and must make them- 
selves heard; and, if so, the almost exclusive dominion of the 
Classical languages is past. I need not here enter into the 
question whether these languages have or have not been 
overrated as an instrument of education. It is sufficient to 
call attention to the fact that, whether rightly or wrongly, 
public opinion is changing in this respect, and to prepare for 
the consequences. 

And, if we turn from the Greek language to the English, 
the present moment seems not unfavorable for the undertak- 
ing. Many grave apprehensions have been expressed on this 
point, and alarming pictures are drawn of the fatal results 

* Mr. Marsh {Lectures on the English Language, xxviii., p. 039) says, "There 
is no sufficient reason to doubt that at the end of this century the knowledge 
of Biblical Greek and Hebrew will be as much in advance of the present 
standard as that standard is before the sacred philology of the beginning of 
this century." I wish I could take this very sanguine view of the probable 
future of the Greek language in England : as regards Hebrew I have ab- 
stained from expressing an opinion. 



PROSPECTS OF THE NEW REVISION. 



159 



which will follow from any attempt to meddle with. the pure 
idiom of our English Bible. Of the infusion of Latinisms 
and Gallicisms with which w T e are threatened I myself have 
no fear. In the last century, or in the beginning of the pres- 
ent, the danger would have been real. The objections urged 
against the language of our English Bible by those who then 
advocated revision are now almost incredible. The speci- 
mens which they offered of an improved diction of the mod- 
ern t} 7 pe would appear simply ludicrous to us if the subject 
on which the experiment was tried had been less grave.* 
The very words which these critics would have ejected from 
our English Bibles as barbarous, or uncouth, or obsolete, 
have again taken their place in our highest poetry, and even 
in our popular language. And though it is impossible that 
the nineteenth century should ever speak the language of 
the sixteenth or seventeenth, still a genuine appreciation and 
careful study of the Authorized Version and of the older 
translations will (we may reasonably hope) enable the present 
revisers, in the corrections which they may introduce, to avoid 
any anachronisms of diction which would offend the taste or 
jar upon the ear. There is all this difference between the 
present advocates of revision and the former, that now we 
reverence the language and idiom of our English Bibles, 
wmereas they regarded it as the crowning offense which 
seemed most to call for amendment. In several instances 
the end may be attained by returning to the renderings of 
the earlier versions which the revisers of 1611 abandoned. 

* See examples in Trench's Authorized Version, p. 32 seq., and Prof. Plump- 
tre's article in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, s. \. Version, Authorized. " I 
remember the relief, " writes Mr. Matthew Arnold {Culture and Anarchy, p. 
44), "with which, after long feeling the sway of Franklin's imperturbable 
good sense, I came upon a project of his for a new version of the Book of Job 
to replace the old version, the style of which, says Franklin, has become obso- 
lete, and thence less agreeable. 'I give,' he continues, 'a few verses which 
may serve as a sample of tbe kind of version I would recommend' .... I 
well remember how, when first I read that, I drew a deep breath of relief, and 
said to myself, After all, there is a stretch of humanity beyond Franklin's vic- 
torious good sense." 

o 



160 LIGHTFOOT ON A FMESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

In almost every other case, the words and even the expres- 
sions which the correction requires will be supplied from 
some other part of the Authorized Version itself. Very rare 
indeed are the exceptions where this assistance will fail, and 
where it may be necessary to introduce a word for which 
there is no authority in the English Bibles. In these cases 
care must be taken that the word so introduced shall be in 
harmony with the general character of our Biblical diction. 
So much license the new revisers may reasonably claim for 
themselves, as it was certainly claimed by the revisers of 
1611. If these cautions are observed, the Bible will still re- 
main to future generations what it has been to past — not 
only the storehouse of the highest truth, but also the purest 
well of their native English. Indeed, w T e may take courage 
from the fact that the language of our English Bible is not 
the language of the age in which the translators lived, but 
in its grand simplicity stands out in contrast to the ornate 
and often affected diction of the literature of that time;* for if 
the retention of an older and better model was possible in the 
seventeenth century, it is quite as possible in the nineteenth. 
ISTor, again, can there be any reasonable ground for appre- 
hension as to the extent and character of the changes which 
may be introduced. The regulations under which the new 
company of revisers will act are a sufficient guarantee against 
hasty and capricious change. The language which public 
speakers and newspaper critics have held on this point would 
only then have force if absolute power were given to each in- 
dividual reviser to introduce all his favorite crotchets. But 
any one who has acted in concert with a large number of in- 
dependent men, training apart and under separate influences, 
will know how very difficult it is to secure the consent of two 
thirds of the whole body to any change which is not a mani- 
fest improvement, and how wholly impossible it would be to 
obtain the suffrages of this number for a novel and question- 
able rendering, however important it might seem to its pro- 
* See Marsh's Lectures,^. 621 seq. 



PR OSPECTS OF THE NEW REVISION \q\ 

poser. It is very possible that several corrections which I 
have suggested here may appear to others in this unfavora- 
ble light. Indeed, it is hardly probable that in all cases they 
should escape being condemned; for any one interested in 
such a subject is naturally led to give prominence to those 
views on which he lays stress himself, just because they ap- 
pear to him not to have received proper attention from oth- 
ers; but if so, it is morally certain that they will be treated 
as they deserve, and not suffered to disfigure the Revised 
Version as it will appear before the public. Indeed, if there 
be any reasonable grounds for apprehension, the danger is 
rather that the changes introduced will be too slight to sat- 
isfy the legitimate demands of theology and scholarship, than 
that they will be so sweeping as to affect the character of our 
English Bible. 

Lastly, in one respect, at least, the present revision is com- 
menced under very auspicious circumstances. There has been 
great liberality in inviting the co-operation of those Biblical 
scholars who are not members of the Anglican communion, 
and they, on their part, have accorded a prompt and cheerful 
welcome to this invitation. This is a matter for great thank- 
fulness. It may be accepted as a guarantee that the work is 
undertaken not with any narrow sectarian aim, but in the 
broad interests of truth ; while also it is an earnest that if 
the revision, when completed, recommends itself by its in- 
trinsic merits (and if it does not, the sooner it is forgotten 
the better), then no unworthy jealousy will stand in the way 
of its general reception.* And meanwhile may we not cher- 
ish a loftier hope ? Now, for the first time, the bishops of 

* ' ' At this day , " wrote Mr. Marsh in 1 859, ' ' there could be no harmony of 
action on this subject between different churches ... So long as this sec- 
tarian feeling — for it can be appropriately designated by no other term— pre- 
vails on either side, there can be no union upon conditions compatible with 
the self-respect of the parties" (p. 641 seq.). This preliminary difficulty, at 
least, has been overcome ; the " better counsels," of which this able writer 
seems to have despaired, have prevailed ; no wound has been inflicted on 
self-respect ; and entire harmony of action has been attained. 



162 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

our Church and the representatives of our Convocation will 
meet at the same table with Nonconformist divines, and will 
engage in a common work of a most sacred kind — the inter- 
pretation of those writings which all alike reverence as the 
source of their truest inspiration here and the foundation of 
their highest hopes hereafter. Is it too much to anticipate 
that by the experience of this united work the Christian com- 
munities in England may be drawn more closely together, 
and that, whether it succeed or fail in its immediate object, 
it may at least dissipate many prejudices and jealousies, may 
promote a better mutual understanding, and thus, by foster- 
ing inward sympathy, may lead the way to greater outward 
harmony among themselves, and a more intimate union with 
the Divine Head?* 

* It will be remembered that this hope was expressed before the Revision 
Company had met. If I felt at liberty to modify the expression by the light 
of subsequent experience, I should speak even more strongly. 



APPENDIX. 

Oil the Words Ittlovgloq, irzpiovaiOQ. 



I. 

The former of these two words, found only in a petition of the Lord's 
Prayer as given both by St. Matthew (vi., 11, tov dprov j/^wv tov tTriovoiov 
Sbg ?)[xiv viinepov) and by St. Luke (xi., 3, tov dprov i)p.wv tov twiovaiov didov 
1 1 fxiv to kciB' y/xspav), is a well-known difficulty in Biblical interpretation, and 
it is certainly a remarkable fact that so much diversity of opinion should be 
possible regarding an expression which occurs in this most familiar and oft- 
enest repeated passage of the Gospels. 

Origen tells us (Ue Orat., 27, i., p. 245, Delarue) that the word iiriovaiov 
does not once occur in Greek literature, and that it is not current in the col- 
loquial language (irapa ovdevi tojv 'E\\t}vujv ovte twv ao<pCJv wvofiaoTai ovrt 
tv Ty tCjv IdicoTutv avvrjOeio: TiTpiTrrai). " It seems," he adds, to have been 
coined (TrtTrkdoOai) by the evangelists. Matthew and Luke agree in using it 
without any difference. The same course has been taken in other cases also 
by persons translating from the Hebrew. For what Greek ever used either 

of the expressions tvuiTiZou or aKovrlaOrjTi? A similar expression to 

■c-rnovaiov occurs in Moses, being uttered by God, But ye shall be to me a peo- 
ple izcpiovaioc. And it seems to me that both words are formed from oytrta." 

This statement is important, because it shows that the Greek fathers de- 
rived no assistance in the interpretation of the word from the spoken or writ- 
ten language, and thus their views are not entitled to the deference which we 
should elsewhere accord to them as interpreters of a living language of which 
we only possess the fragmentary remains. In this particular instance they 
cease to be authorities. The same data which were open to them are open 
to us also, and from these we are free to draw our conclusions independently. 

These data are threefold : (1.) The Etymological Form ; (2.) The Require- 
ments of the Sense; (3.) The Tenor of Tradition. 

This last element seems to me to be especially important in the present 
case. The Lord's Prayer was doubtless used from very early times in pri- 
vate devotion. It certainly formed a part of the public services of the Church, 
in which (to mention no other use) it was repeated at the celebration of the 
Holy Eucharist.* The traditional sense, therefore, which was commonly at- 
tached to a word occurring in it must have a high value. 

* Of the use of the Lord's Prayer in the early Church, see Bingham's Antiquities, 
xiii., vii., § 1 seq., aud Probst, Liturgie der drei ersten Christlichen Jahrhunderte, In- 
dex, s. v. Vater unser. 



164 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

It was chiefly the conviction that justice had not been done to this consid- 
eration which led me to institute the investigation afresh.* Previous writers 
have laid stress on the scholastic interpretation of Origen and his successors, 
as though this were the best authenticated tradition, when they ought rather 
to have sought for the common sense of the Church in the primitive versions, 
which are both earlier in date than Origen, and cover a much wider area. I 
hope to make the force of the distinction between the scholastic and tradi- 
tional interpretations clearer in the sequel. 

The different explanations which have been given to the word fall into 
two classes : (1.) Those which connect it with ikvai, deriving it from i-ndvai 
through Ittlujv or kmovoa, and (2.) Those which connect it with elvai, as a 
compound from eiri and ovaia. Each class includes various explanations, 
but the one is distinguished from the other by a simple criterion. The mean- 
ings belonging to the one class are temporal ; to the other, qualitative. 

In the Jirst class we find the following: (i.) to-morrow's, derived directly 
from htnovaa," the coming day," or " the morrow :" (ii.) coming, either taken 
from liriovaa, and meaning the same as the last, but more vaguely expressed, 
or derived directly from iirdvai, liriwv (without the intervention of the femi- 
nine iinovaa) : (iii.) daily, which seems to be got from the first sense, "for 
the coming day:" (iv.) continual, which is probably a paraphrastic mode of 
expressing (i.) or (iii.): (v.) future, "yet to come," from iitmv, in which 
case the expression is most often applied in a spiritual sense to Christ, the 
bread of life, who shall come hereafter. 

Under the second head, also, various explanations are comprised: (i.)for 
our sustenance, and so "necessary," ovaia being referred to physical subsist- 
ence ; (ii-) for our essential life, and so " spiritual, eternal," ovaia signifying 
the absolute or higher being; (iii.) pre-eminent, excellent, surpassing, as be- 
ing "above all ovaiai," and so nearly equivalent to 7repiovaiog ; (iv.) abun- 
dant, a meaning akin to the last, and apparently reached by giving the same 
sense "above" to ini ; (v.) consubstantial, a sense which is attained by forcing 
the meaning of the preposition in another direction. t 

In this list I have enumerated only those meanings which were given to 
the word during the first five centuries. More recent writers have added to 
the number, but their interpretations, when not deduced directly from one or 
other of the senses already given, are so far-fetched and so unnatural that 
they do not deserve to be seriously considered. 

Again, I have confined myself to direct interpretations of iiriovaioc, not re- 
garding such variations of meaning as arise from different senses attached to 
the substantive dproe.. Thus, for instance, " our daily bread" might be either 
the daily sustenance for the body or the daily sustenance for the soul. But, 
though these two senses are widely divergent, their divergence is not due to 
any difference of interpretation affecting tiriovaioQ, with which word alone I 
am concerned. 

* The fullest recent investigation of the meaning of hiriovoto<: with which I am ac- 
quainted is in Tholnck's Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, ii., p. 172 seq. (Engl, 
trans.), where he arrives at conclusions different from my own. He gives a list of 
previous treatises on the subject. Among the more important are those of Pfeiffer 
and Stolberg in the Thesaur. Theol. Philol, ii., p. 116 seq., 123 seq. (Amstel., 1702). 

t See the passage from Victorinus quoted on p. 174-5. 



APPEXDIX. 



165 



I shall now consider the two classes of meanings which are distinguished 
above, testing them by the considerations already enumerated : (1.) The Et- 
ymology of the Word ; (2.) The Eequirements of the Sense ; (3.) The Tenor 
of Tradition. 

§ 1 . The Etymology of the Word. 

'H i-n-iovaa is commonly used for "the coming day," "the morrow." In 
this sense it occurs frequently without the substantive r)p.epa both in Biblical 
Greek (Prov. xxvii., 1, ov yap yivwoictig ri Tt&rai ?'/ tTriovaa, Acts xvi., 11; 
xx., 15; xxi.,18) and elsewhere (e.g., Polyb., ii., 25, 11 ; Pausan.,iv., 22, 3; 
Plut. , Mor. , 205 e, 838 d, etc.). See also the references in Lobeck, Phryn., 
p. 461. From this word, which had become practically a substantive, the 
adjective i-iovcnog would be formed in the usual way. 

It is urged, indeed (see Suicer, Thes., s. v. t-iovoiog), that the analogy of 
ctv-epalog, rpiralog, etc., would require kiriovo-dlog. In replying to this ob- 
jection we need not (I venture to think) acquiesce in the negative answer 
that such adjectives are not valid to disprove the existence of a different 
form in -tog. Whether we regard the etymolygy or the meaning, the analogy 
seems to be false. The termination -atoc in all these adjectives is suggested 
by the long a or n of the feminines from which they are derived, fov-kpa, 
rpirr], etc. ;* and the short ending of k-niovca is not a parallel case. More- 
over, the meaning is not the same ; for the adjectives in -gIoq fix a date, e.g., 
rt-apraXog r,\Qtv, "he came on the fourth day," whereas the sense which we 
require here is much more general, implying simply possession or connection. 

Or, again, the word might be derived from the masculine participle t-iu>v, 
as Ikovoioq from zkwv, WtKovaiog from tOtXwv, yipovaiog from yipojv, Trvyovoi- 
oq from irvyi'ijv, 'Axepovaiog (or 'AxtpovTioc) from 'A^pou/, etc. : see Lobeck, 
Phryn., p. 4. To this derivation there is no grammatical objection. Only 
it may be pleaded that no motive existed for introducing an adjective by the 
side of tTruov sufficiently powerful to produce the result in an advanced stage 
of the language, when the fertility of creating new forms had been greatly 
impaired. 

On the other hand, the derivation of tTriovviog from liri and ovcia, if not 
impossible, is at least more difficult. Two objections have been taken to this 
etymology — the one, as it seems to me, futile ; the other really formidable, if 
not insuperable. (1.) It is alleged that an adjective in -ovcriog would not be 
formed from the substantive ovoia. To this it is sufficient to reply, that from 
this very word ovaia we find the compounds avovmog (Clem. A\ex., Exc. 
Theod., p. 970, ed. Potter ; Pseudo-Justin, Conf. dogrn. Arist., § 50, p. 145 ; 
ib., Qucest. Christ, ad Gent., p. 185 b), ivovaiog (Victorin., c. Arium, ii., 1 ; 
Synes., Hymn., 2, p. 318; Cyril. Alex. , in Joann.,\.,5,-p. 527), Ivovaiog (Philo, 
in Flacc, § 10, ii., p. 528, Mang.), irepovmog {k-tpova'njjg , Porphyr. in Stob., 
Eel Phys., 41, ii., p. 822), p.ovov<nog, o/xoovaiog, virspovGiog (Victorin., 1. c. ; 
Synes., 1. c), irpoavovaiog (Synes., Hymn., 1. c, and Hymn., 3, p. 322), etc. ; 
and from i'iovoia the compounds avre^ovaog (frequently, e. g.,Diod., xiv., 

* It is not meant to assert that forms in cuos can not be derived from other words 
than feminines in a or n ■ bur, as a role, they are derived in this way, though some ex- 
ceptions occur: see Buttmaun, Ausf. Gramm., ii., p. 443. 



166 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

105) and vir^ovcnog (see Steph., Thes., s. v., ed. Dindorf and Hase). (2.) On 
the other hand, to the objection that the form should be i-rovo-iog, not trrioixn- 
og, I do not see what valid answer can be given. It has been thought suffi- 
cient to adduce in reply such words as t7navdavio,k7riovpa,i7rt6a<ronai, which, 
however, are confined to poetry ; and, again, imeueris, £7riopicog,* which occur 
also in prose. To this list other words might be added, such as t7rU\7rTog, 
iiriEvvv/M, 87rir)pa, kTrirjpavog, kTTLiSjuov, iirdoTOjp. But the maintainers of this 
view have never inquired why the i of Ittl, which elsewhere is elided, has been 
exceptionally retained in such instances. The real fact is, that all these 
words, without exception, were originally written with the digamma, iinfav- 
Sdvio, kirifeiKrjg, kitiftKirTog, lirifopKog, etc., so that elision was out of the 
question ; and even when the digamma disappeared in pronunciation or was 
replaced by a simple aspirate, the old forms maintained their ground. 

In the present instance no such reason can be pleaded to justify the reten- 
tion of the i. The derivation of i~iovaiog from Itt'i, ovaia, can only be main- 
tained on the hypothesis that its form was determined by false analogies, with 
a view to exhibiting its component parts more clearly. But this hypothesis 
is not permissible if any other satisfactory explanation of the word can be 
given ; for i-movotog would then be the single exception to the rule which de- 
termines compounds of ini. In fact, the compound irrovaMh^g is found oc- 
casionally, thus showing that the final vowel of the preposition is naturally 
elided before ovoia. 

§ 2. The Requirements of the Sense. 

It has been shown that etymological considerations favor the root livai as 
against tlvai. It will be necessary, in the next place, to ask whether the ex- 
igencies of the sense require us to reverse the decision to which etymology has 
led us. Is there really any solid objection to our taking rbv dprov ijfitiv rbv 
bTTiovGiov to mean " our bread for the coming day?" 

One objection, and one only, is urged repeatedly against this explanation. 
The petition so explained, it is thought, would be a direct violation of the pre- 
cept which our Lord gives at the close of the chapter, vi., 34, /jltj ovv fxepifivfj- 
aijre elg n)v avpiov.f To this I would reply, first, that though t7novaa is 
most frequently a synonym for >) avpiov, yet the words are not coextensive 
in meaning. . If the prayer were said in the evening, no doubt t) l-movaa 
would be "the following day, the morrow;" but supposing it to be used at 
or before dawn, the word would designate the day then breaking. Thus, in 
the Ecclesiazusae of Aristophanes, one of the speakers, after describing the ' 
time (ver. 20), icalroi rrpbg bpBpov y lariv, " 'tis close on daybreak," exclaims 
(Ver. 105), vr) ty\v iiriovoav r'l/nepav, where ty\v avpiov would be quite out of 
place. This instance shows the different power of the two words, which in 
some aspects may be said to contrast with each other ; for the one implies 

* eirioydoo? is also adduced; but in the only passage quoted for this form, Plat., 
Tim., 36 a, b, the hest editions have the usual form hiro-vdoo?. 

t It is astonishing to see with what persistence this worthless argument is repeat- 
ed. I find it, for instance, in two of the most recent theological books which have come 
into my hands, written from directly opposite points of view: Delitzsch, Brief an die 
Rimer in das Hebrdische ubersetzt, p. 27 (1870), and Keim, Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, 
ii.,p.279(lS71). 



APPENDIX. 



167 



time approaching, and the other time deferred. But, secondly (and this seems 
to be a complete answer to the objection), this argument, if it. proves any 
thing, proves too much. If the command fir) ptpipvav is tantamount to a 
prohibition against prayer for the object about which we are forbidden to be 
anxious, then not only must we not pray for to-morrow's food, but we must 
not pray for food at all. For he who says (ver. 34) lhj /xepipvijanre tig tijv 
avpiov, says also (ver. 25) f.n) Liepipvart ry ^vxy vjxuiv rl (payr}Tt; and on 
this showing, whatever interpretation we put upon t-rriovmov, a precept will be 
violated. The fact is, that, as fiipipva means anxiety, undue thought or care 
(see above, p. 145 seq.), prayer to God is not only consistent with the absence 
of pipipva, but is a means of driving it away. One apostle tells us (1 Pet. v. , 
7) to "cast all our anxiety (ptpi/xva) on God, for he careth (avrqi fxtXei) for 
us." Another directs us " not to be anxious about any matter (prjdtv fitpijx- 
va-t), but in every thing, with prayer and supplication joined with thanksgiv- 
ing, to make our desires known unto God" (Phil, iv., 6). These injunctions 
we fulfill when Ave use the petition in the Lord's Prayer in a proper spirit. 
At the same time, even in our prayers we are directed specially to the needs 
of "the coming day," for in the very act of asking for distant material bless- 
ings there is danger of exciting in ourselves this n'tpipva which it is our duty 
to crush.* 

On the other hand, if iiriovmov be derived from tiri, ovaia,we have the 
choice between the two senses of ovaia, (1.) "subsistence," and (2.) "essence, 
being." Of these the latter must be rejected at once. It is highly improba- 
ble that a term of transcendental philosophy should have been chosen, and a 
strange compound invented for insertion in a prayer intended for every-day 
use. Indeed, nothing could well be conceived more alien to the simplicity of 
the Gospel-teaching than such an expression as iiriovGioc, meaning "suited 
to," or "conducive to the ovaia, the essential being." If, therefore, this deri- 
vation from ovaia is tenable at all, we must be prepared to assign to it the 
more homely meaning "subsistence," so that tTtiovaiog will be "sufficient 
to sustain us," " enough for our absolute wants, but not enough for luxury." 
Such a sense in itself would meet the requirements of the passage. Only it 
does not seem likely that a strange word, which arrives at this meaning in an 
indirect way, should have been invented to express a very simple idea for 
which the Greek language had already more than one equivalent. Nor, in- 
deed, is it a natural sense for the word to bear. In Porphyr., Isag., 16, and 
elsewhere, t7rovaiajci]g is used to signify accidental as opposed to essential, 
denoting what is superadded to the ovaia ; and if such a compound as Ittiov- 
aiog (from ovaia) were possible, it ought to have a similar meaning. 

§ 3. The Tenor of Tradition. 

Hitherto we have seen no sufficient reason for abandoning the derivation 
from isvai, while, on the other hand, serious difficulties are encountered by 

* The moral bearing of this petition is well put by St. Basil (Reg. brev. tract, cclii., 
ii.,p. 500), though he wrongly interprets the word itself: 6 Ipja&ixevo? nvnuovevatv tov 

Kvpiov \e70v-ro? Mf| fxepcfivaTe rrj ^vxrj v/jlwv ri <pdyr]Te 17 ri iririre . . . tov e-mouaiov apTOv, 
tovt€<tti tov 7Tpo9 Tt]v kcptifiepov £co>(i/ Tt] ovffta. ij/jLuni xp hc(|U€iovto, oi>x eo.v~u> €TriTpeirei uXXci 
tw 0eu5 6vti/7x«"€< 7rep« tovtov, k.t.\. 



168 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 

adopting the alternative, and deriving the word from tlvai. It remains to 
inquire how far this result is borne out by tradition. 

Tholuck, discussing the two derivations of Ittiovgioq, from elvai and i'evai 
respectively, states, "The oldest and most widely spread is the former ;" and 
Suicer, mentioning the derivation from r) tTriovaa, adds, "Nemo ex veteribus 
ita explicat." I hope to show that such statements are the very reverse of 
the truth ; that, so far as our evidence goes, the derivation from Ikvai is de- 
cidedly the more ancient ; and that, though the other prevailed widely among 
Greek interpreters after Origen, yet it never covered so wide an area as its 
elder rival. I shall take the great divisions of the Church as distinguished 
by their several languages, and investigate the traditional sense assigned to 
the word in each. 

]. In the Greek Church the first testimony is that of Origen (JDe Orat., 
27, 1. c). He himself derives the word from ovaia, adducing Trepiovaiog as 
an analogy. This analogy, as we have already seen, is false ; for, whereas 
t7rl loses the final vowel in composition, 7repl retains it ; so that while the one 
compound would be Trepiovaiog, the other would be ETrovaiog. Thus derived, 
the word signifies, according to Origen, rbv dg Tyv ovaiav ri/xwv cvp(3a\X6iJ.e- 
vov aprov. It is the spiritual bread which nourishes the spiritual being, 6 Ty 
(pvaei Ty Xoyucy raraXA^Aoraroc Kctl Ty ovaiq av-y avyyevrjg, k.t.X. This view 
Origen supports by quoting other passages where the heavenly bread is men- 
tioned, and at the close of the discussion he adds (p. 249 c), " Some one will 
say that Ittiovgiov is formed [1. Kar*(7x?7/<aT«70at] from eirievai ; so that we 
are bidden to ask for the bread which belongs to the future life (rbv oiiceTov 
Toil fitWov-og ai&vog), that God may anticipate and give it to us even now, 
so that what shall be given as it were to-morrow may be given to us to-day 
(were to oiovei avpiov doQrjo-o/Aevov cr\\iepov ijjTiv doOrjvai) ; the future life be- 
ing represented by to-morrow, and the present by to-day ; but the former ac- 
ceptation is better in my judgment, etc." Thus the earliest notice among 
Greek-speaking Christians reveals a conflict between the two derivations. It 
is true that in either case Origen contemplates a spiritual rather than a literal 
interpretation of the bread, but this fact accords with the general principles 
of the Alexandrian school from which the notice emanates, for this school is 
given to importing a mystical sense into the simple language of the Gospel. 
This ulterior question does not affect the derivation of the word. 

So far as I am acquainted with the language of Origen elsewhere, his mode 
of speaking here is quite consistent with the supposition that he himself first 
started the derivation from elvai, ovma. At all events, this supposition ac- 
cords with his fondness for importing a reference to "absolute being" into 
the language of the apostles and evangelists elsewhere, as, for instance, when 
he interprets roic ayioig Tolg ovoiv (omitting the words iv "E^koy) in Ephes. 
i., 1, and "iva to. ovTa \zaTapyr\csy in 1 Cor. i., 28, in this sense (see Cramer's 
Catena on Ephes., 1. c). A derivation which transferred the word eiuovciog 
at once from the domain of the material to the domain of the suprasensual 
would have a strong attraction for Origen's mind. Still, it must remain a 
pure hypothesis that he himself invented this derivation. He may have got 
it from one of his predecessors, Pantamus or Clement ; but, at all events, it 
bears the impress of the Alexandrian school. On the other hand, his own 



APPENDIX. 



169 



language shows that the other etymology (from iirdvai) had its supporters. 
How few or how numerous they Avere, the vagueness of his expression will 
not allow us to speculate. It is only when we come to the versions that we 
find solid ground for assuming that in the earliest age this was the prevailing 
view. 

The next Greek writer whose opinion is known was also an Alexandrian. 
The great Athanasius (De Incarn., § 16, i., p. 706) derives the word from 
t7rievai,but gives it a theological meaning: "Elsewhere he calls the Holy 
Spirit heavenly bread, saying, 'Give us this day tov aprov yfxujv tov iinovtnov,* 
for he taught us in his prayer to ask in the present life for tov tmovaiov aprov, 
that is, the future, whereof we have the first-fruits in the present life, partak- 
ing of it throught the flesh of the Lord, as he himself said, The bread which I 
shall give is my flesh, etc." This is exactly the account of the word which 
Origen rejects. 

To those, however, who have studied the early history of Biblical interpre- 
tation, it will be no surprise to find that Origen's explanation of this word ex- 
erted a very wide and lasting influence. It is a common phenomenon to find 
nearly all the Greek expositors following him, even in cases where his inter- 
pretation is almost demonstrably wrong. If his explanations had the good 
fortune to be adopted by the Antiochene school, as was frequently the case, 
they passed unchallenged, and established themselves in the Church at large. 
In this particular instance the procedure of the Antiochene school would ap- 
pear to have been characteristic, both in its agreement with and in its de- 
parture from Origen. While accepting his derivation, they seem to have 
substituted a realistic for his mystical sense of dprog tmovaiog. The adjec- 
tive, thus explained, becomes "for our material subsistence," and not "for 
our spiritual being. " 

The views of the earliest representatives of the Antiochene school on this 
point are not recorded. But they may perhaps be assumed not only from the 
general tenor of later interpretations in this school (from Chrysostom down- 
ward), but also from the opinions of the Cappadocian fathers. 

In the treatise of Gregory Nyssen, De Orat. Domin., iv., i., p. 7-15, this 
view is stated very explicitly : " We are ordered," he says, "to ask for what 
is sufficient for the preservation of our bodily subsistence (to irpbg rr)v avvrr)- 
prjaiv rrjg o-wfxariiciig ovoiag)." The same interpretation is adopted by 
his brother Basil (Reg. brev. tract., cclii., ii., p. 500), who explains tov t7riov- 
aiov aprov as that "which is serviceable for our daily life for our subsistence 
(tov Trpbg tt)v etyrj/xEpov £a»)v ry ovatq, r'lfioJv xprjaintvovra)." The same der- 
ivation, though not quite the same meaning, is assigned to it also by Cyril 
of Jerusalem, Catech., xxiii. (My stag., v.), 15, p. 329 : " This holy bread is 
Eiriovmog, being appointed for the subsistence (or substance) of the soul (Irvl 
ty\v ovaiav r/Jc ^vxng Kararaaaojxtvog). This bread does not go into thebel- 

* The Benedictine editor translates kwiovtrtov here by supersubstantialem after Je- 
rome, though the contest of St.Athanasius is directly against this. At the same time, 
Athanasius arrives at the same mystical meaning of rbv aprov tov kiuovaiov as Jerome, 
though through a different derivation. 

t dta is absent from some texts, but seems to be correct. If it is omitted, the sense 
will be " partaking of the flesh." 



170 LIOHTFOOT OK A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

ly, nor is it cast out into the draught, hut is distributed into the whole of thy 
complex frame (elg iraaav gov ryv gvgtugiv dvadidorai) for the benefit of 
body and soul ; " where an application chiefly, though not exclusively spirit- 
ual, is given to ovala. Again, St. Chrysostom, De Aug. Port., etc., 5,* iii., 
p. 35, interprets Ittlovglov "which passes to the substance of the body (trri 
ty]v ovaiav rov Gwpiarog dia/3aivovra), and is able to compact (Gvyicporrjaai) 
this ;" but elsewhere, in his Homily on St. John (xliii., § 2, viii., p. 257), he 
explains rov aprov rov lttiovg'iov, tovtsgtl, tov KaOrj/xeptvov ; while on St. Mat- 
thew, where the passage itself occurs, he expresses himself in such a vague 
way as if he were purposely evading a difficulty (xix., § 5, vii.. p. 251 seq.), 
ri Igti tov aprov tov bttiovgiov ; tov l<pi]jxtpov . . . d&rai [r) <pvoie~\ rpo(pyg rrjg 
dvayicaiag . . . vrrep aprov jxovov hciktvae ri\v tu\^v TroteiaOat, Kai iiirtp aprov 
tov s<pnp.epov, ware fir) virtp Trig avpiov Liepiiivdv did tovto TrpoGsQnKS, rov dp- 

TOV TOV tTTlOVGlOV, TOVTIGTI, TOV l<pY]p(.pOV Kai Ovdk TOVTq) 1jpKSG9r] T<£ prjLHXTl 

dWd Kai iTtpov /xerd tovto TrpoGtOrjKtv, uttojv, dog yplv Gy/xepov' uigte fxrj 7re- 
paiTspu) Gvvrpi/3eiv savrovg ry (f>povridi rrjg trrtovGyg yp,spag, where he shelters 
himself under the vagueness of tyrj/xtpog without explaining how he arrives at 
this meaning, and where the somewhat ambiguous words "not to afflict our- 
selves further with the thought of the coming (iiriovGng) day" seem to allow, 
if not to suggest, the derivation from irriovGa. In a later passage of the same 
Homilies (lv., § 5, p. 562), and in his Exposition of Psalm cxxvii. (v., p. 364), 
he again quotes this petition, but avoids an explanation ; in his Homilies on 
Genesis (liv., § 5, iv., p. 530 seq.) he adduces it as setting the proper limits 
to our desire for temporal goods, tov aprov y/xwv rov Ittiovgiov dbg r)/xlv Gtjfxe- 
pov, dvri tov, rr)v rrjg yp'&pag rpofyv ; while on Philippians iv., 19 (iZora.xv., 
§ 4, xi., p. 316), commenting on the words TrXypwGei irdaav X9 Biav v/xuv, he 
adds "so as not to be in want, but to have what is needful (rd rrpbg ^paW), 
for Christ also put this in his prayer when teaching us rov aprov ri/xwv tov 
Ittiovgiov dbg rffiiv Gr)pepov. ,, Thus he seems throughout to be wavering be- 
tween the meanings daily and necessary, i.e., between the derivations from 
isvai and dvai, though he tends towards the latter. Again, Theodoret, on 
Phil, iv., 19, following Chrysostom, quotes this petition as warranting St. Paul 
in asking for his converts ryv Kara rov rrapovra fiiov ^joeiav. 

Somewhat later, Cyril or Alexandria, on Luke xi., 3 (Mai, ii., p. 2Q6), 
thus comments on Ittiovgiov : " Some say that it is that which shall come and 
shall be given in the future life ; ... . but if this were true, .... why 
do they add, Give us day by day f For one may see likewise by these words 
that they make their petition for daily food ; and we must understand by 
Ittiovgiov what is sufficient (rov aurdpKii), etc."t 

Later Greek writers contented themselves with repeating one or more of the 
interpretations given by their predecessors. Thus Damascene (Orthod. Fid. , 
iv., 13, i., p. 272, Lequien) says, ovrog b dprog Igtiv r) arrapxy tov /xkXXovrog 
aprov, bg Igtiv b kiriovGiog' to yap Ittiovgiov dyXol r) rbv p.eXXovTa,rovT£GTL, rbv 
rov /xkXXovrog aiaJvog, r) rbv TTpbg GwrypnGiv rrjg ovGiag y/xuiv XaLij3av6fxsvov ; 

* It is right to mention that the authorship of this Homily has been questioned. 
See the Preface in Montfaucon's edition. 

t In Glaphyr. in Exod., ii., i., p. 2S6, ed. Auberti, he explains this petition as equiva- 
lent to asking for t« ei? £0*71/ knn^ia. 



APPEXDIX. 1 h 1 

and Theophylact (on Luke xi.,3) explains it rbv tiri ry ovaia i^Cbv kciI rr) 
(jvardaei rfjg %tarjg cv/xfiaWofiti'ov, ou ~ov Trspirrbv TrdvTuig d\\d top avay- 
Kciiov (see also on Matt, vi., 11).* 

2. From the Aramaic Christians, the testimony in favor of the derivation 
from Iwiivai is stronger. 

We learn from St, Jerome (in Matth. vi., 11, vii., p. 34) that in the Gospel 
according to the Hebrews the word tTTiovGiov, which he translated "su- 
persubstantialem," was rendered by Mahar prTS), " quod dicitur crastinum, 
ut sit sensus, Panem nostrum crastinum, id est futurum, da nobis hodie." 

Whatever view be adopted of the origin of this apocryphal Gospel, its evi- 
dence has the highest value in this particular instance. Of its great antiquity 
no question can be entertained. It can hardly have been written much later 
than the close of the first century. It was regarded as an authoritative docu- 
ment by the Judaizing Christians of Palestine. It adhered very closely to the 
Gospel of St. Matthew, and was even thought by some to be the Hebrew (i. e., 
Aramaic) original of this Gospel, though the variations are too considerable 
to admit this simple solution. On the whole, we may conclude with high prob- 
ability that its traditions were not derived through the Greek, but came from 
some Aramaic source or sources — whether from an oral Gospel, or from writ- 
ten notes put together for catechetical purposes, or from the Aramaic copy of 
St. Matthew's Gospel altered to suit the purposes of the writer. But, even if 
it were derived from our Greek Gospels, its interpretation of tTriovaiov would 
still have the greatest weight as proceeding from Palestine at this very early 
date. In a familiar expression in the most familiar of all the evangelical rec- 
ords, it is not unreasonable to assume that the tradition would be preserved 
at the close of the apostolic age unimpaired in the vernacular language of our 
Lord and his disciples. + 

From the Gospel according to the Hebrews we turn to another Aramaic 
source, emanating from a different quarter, the Curetoxiax Syriac Version 
of the New Testament. 

In Matt. vi. ,11, this version has : 

.{1 .sea r£59Ci*:t r£Ai2Qv* piu\o 

" And-our-bread continual of-the-day give-to-us." 
In Luke xi., 3 : 

.^q&A&s pdi^sar^ f<J=ojA {1 J3cwo 

" And-give to-us the-bread continual of- e very-day." 
Here the temporal sense "continual," given to iTriovoiov, connects it with 
kTnevai, whether through l-movca, "for the coming day," and so "daily, con- 
stant," or, more directly, " ever coming," and so " perpetual. "J 

* A number of different interpretations are huddled together by an anonymous 
writer in Origen, Op. i., p. 910 (ed. Delarue). 

t It is unnecessary here to discuss the question to what extent Greek was spoken 
in Palestine at the Christian era. Even if, with Dr. Roberts, in his instructive work, 
Discussio7is on the Gospels, we take the view that the Palestinian Jews were bi-lingual, 
the argument in the text will still hold good. 

t Cureton compares Numbers, ch. iv., v. T, ^J^Pil fiJl? translated in the Syriac 



172 LIGHTFOOT ON A FMESH EE VISION OF THE N TEST. 

When, however, we turn from the Curetonian to the later revision, the Pe- 
shito Striac, Ave find that the influence of the Greek interpreters has been 
at work meanwhile. The word "necessary" is substituted for "constant,"' 
the qualitative sense for the temporal, i.e., the derivation from tlvai for the 
derivation from ikvai. 

In Matt. vi. , 1 1 of this version, the petition runs, 



r^-i^cu ^aaojM f£soaA A .a 

" Give to-us the-bread of-our-necessitv this-dav. 



• CO 



In Luke xi., 3 : 

.^scui^ ^jajcvjao.i r^sauA A jscto 

"Give to-us the-bread of-our-necessity every-day." 
This is only one of the many instances where the Peshito betrays the influ- 
ences of the fourth century whether in the text or in the interpretation.* 

In the still later Harclean Version (A.D. 616), again, this same inter- 
pretation is adopted in both passages, though slightly varied in form. 

In Matt, vi., 11: 

•r£US>9ft» ^ .aco f€.££LiaQ9 Geo ^L.i rd^ftuS&A 

" The-bread of-us that necessary give to-us this-day." 
In Luke xi. , 3 : 

"The-bread of-necessity of-us give to-us this-day:" 

with a v. 1. fr^J^CVa A&23S Cfft (i.e., to icaQ' y/xepav) for f^LiS&Cl* 

(aljj.apov). 

Again, the Jerusalem Striac, Avhich was perhaps translated from a Greek 
Lectionary, and can hardly be earlier than the 5th century, also appears to 
derive imovoiog from uvea, ovaia, but gives it a different sense, apparently 
confusing it with -xtpiovaioQ, as St. Jerome does. 

In Matt, vi., 11, it has, 

" Our-bread of-opulence (or "abundance") give to-us this-day" (i., p 234, ed. 
Miniscalchi-Enzzo). The corresponding passage in St. Luke is not extant 
in this version. 

Thus among the Aramaic Christians, the earliest tradition, which has reach- 
ed us by two distinct channels, connects the word with iinsvai ; while in the 
later versions, after the influence of the Greek interpreters had made itself 
felt, this traditional sense has been displaced by the derivation from ovaia. 

It will be seen hereafter how the later rendering substituted by St. Jerome 
failed to suppress the traditional quotidianum of the Old Latin. In the same 

OV^f^La^^F^ f^S&j&j* His own speculations respecting the original read- 
ing in St. Matthew seem both unnecessary and untenable. 

* Prof. Wright informs me that he has not found any variation in the earliest MSS. 
of the Peshito in the British Museum belonging to the 5th, 6th, and Tth centuries. 



APPENDIX. 173 

way the T^Ha^F*' of the Old (Curetonian) Syriac, though it does not 
show equal vitality, occurs occasionally, and still survives long after the later 
revision of the New Testament, which we call the Peshito, had superseded 
the earlier version or versions. Thus, in the Syriac recension of the Acts of 
Thomas — which must be a very ancient work, for it has a distinctly Gnostic 
character — the Lord's Prayer is quoted towards the end, and the petition in 
question runs 

p£59a*3 *<Ua33<< KLSOsaI ^1 J3CT30 
closely following this version. * Again, in one of the poems of Jacob of Sa- 
rug, who died A.D. 521 (Zingerle's Monumenta Syriaca, p. 31, Innsbruck, 
1869), it is said of the patriarch Jacob (see Gen. xxviii., 20; that he "prayed 
the prayer which our Lord taught : 

.^1 sco r£s3cu:i rdisnr€ r£sa*A 

The-bread continual of-the-day give to-me. ' 
And lower down he again repeats the characteristic wo v ds : 

.r£sacu:r r£Aju23r<' r^Jsa^V 

This rendering of tov dprov tov kinovaiov is found also in an Exposition of 
the Lord's Prayer by the same writer, preserved in the MS. , Brit. Mus., Add., 
17, 157 (dated A.G. 876= A.D. 565), in which the expression is repeated not 
less than three times, fol. 48 a, 49 a.% 

3. The testimony of the Egyptian versions, again, is highly valuable, both 
as preserving a very ancient tradition (for it would seem that they must both 
be assigned to the close of the second or beginning of the third century), and 
as representing a distinct and isolated section of the Church. 

The Memphitic, the version of Lower Egypt, and the Thebaic, the ver- 
sion of Upper Egypt, agree in the derivation from ievai ; and their agreement 
is the more valuable, inasmuch as their general character shows them to be 
independent the one of the other. 

* These Acts are fouud in a British Museum MS., Add., 14, 645, and have been re- 
cently edited by Prof. Wright, in his Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, 1871. The text 
of the Lord's Prayer in these Acts agrees generally with the Curetonian Version as 
against the Peshito. 

t This passage was pointed out to me by Mr. Bensly, of the Cambridge University 
Library. I had also hoped that I might find this petition quoted in the works of one 
of the earlier Syriac writers, Aphraates or Ephrem, but my search has not been attend- 
ed with success. An indirect reference in Ephrem (Op., vi., p. 642) omits the word 
in question. 

Ai^Ln ^ A* ^ wl - n ^ M * rd^acus rdaa.,iA.\ 

"The bread of the day shall suffice thee, as thou hast learnt in the Prayer." At the 
same time, Ephrem agrees with the Curetonian against the Peshito in f^SSOrfS, 
so that it seems probable he used the Curetonian Version. Prof.Wright, at my request, 
examined several Syriac Service-books in the British Museum Library. He reports 
that all the volumes which he examined are Jacobite, and that " the reading invaria- 
bly agrees with the Peshito text of Matt, vi., 11. They belong to the 9th, 10th, and 
11th centuries." t These references were communicated to me by Prof.Wright. 



174 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

The Memphitic Version has : 
In Matt. vi. ,11: 

neNGOIK NTep<\CTI MHiq N&N M(j)0OY» 
" Our bread of-to-morrow give-it to-us to-day." 
In Luke xi.,3 : 

TTGNOOIK C0NHOY MHiq N<\N MMHNI. 
"Our bread that-cometh give-it to-us daily." 
The Thebaic Version : 
In Matt, vi., 11 : 

TTGNOeiK CTNHY NfTI MMOq NAN MTTOOY. 
''Our bread that-cometh give-thou it to us to-day." 
The corresponding passage of St. Luke in this version is not preserved. 

Here we have a choice of two translations, both founded on the same deri- 
vation, the one through i-xiovoa, the other directly from imsvai. 

In all the Coptic (i.e., Memphitic) Service-books which I have seen, the 
rendering of imovaiov is NTGp&CTI, " of to-morrow. " 

4. The Latin churches preserve a still more ancient tradition. The Old 
Latin Version, which dates certainly from the second century, and not im- 
probably, so far as regards the Gospels, from the first half of the century, ren- 
ders i-movmov by quotidianum in both evangelists. Of this rendering there 
can be no doubt. It is found in the extant manuscripts of the Old Latin 
Version in both places. It is quoted, moreover, by the early Latin fathers 
Tertullian (De Or at., 6) and Cyprian (De Orat., p. 104, Fell). Though both 
these fathers are commenting especially on the Lord's Prayer, and both adopt 
a spiritual sense of the petition, as referring to Christ the living bread and to 
the eucharistic feast, yet they comment on " quotidianum" from this point of 
view, and seem to be unaware that any other rendering is possible. 

At length, in the fourth century, the influence of the scholastic interpreta- 

' lion, put forward by Origen and the Greek fathers, makes itself felt in Latin 

writers. The first semblance of any such influence is found in Juvencus,»the 

Latin poet, who wrote a metrical history of the Gospel about A.D. 330-385. 

He renders the words 

" Vitalisque hodie sancti substantia panis 
Proveniat nobis." — Evany. Hist, L, 031. 

Here, however, though the coincidence is curious, no inference can safely be 
drawn from the occurrence of" substantia," since Juvencus elsewhere uses 
the word with a genitive as a convenient periphrasis to eke out his metre, 
without any special significance ; e. g., i., 415, " substantia panis" (Matt, iv., 
4); i., 510, " salis substantia" (Matt, v., 13) ; ii., 420, "vocis substantia" 
(Matt, ix., 32) ; ii., 524, " animas substantia" (Matt, xi., 5) ; ii., 677, " cre- 
dendi substantia" (John v., 38) ; hi., 668, "arboris substantia" (Matt, xxi., 
21). 

In Victorintjs the Rhetorician, who was acquainted with the Greek com- 
mentators, the first distinct traces of this interpretation in the Latin Church 
are found. In his treatise against Arius, completed about the year 365, he 
writes (i., 31,Bibl. Vet. Pair., viii., p. 163. ed. Galland.) : " Unde deductum 



APPENDIX. 275 

smovaiov quam a substantia ? Da panem nobis iirioiaiov hodiernum. Quo- 

niam Jesus vita est, et corpus ipsius vita est, corpus autem panis Sig- 

nificat tTTtovcnov ex ipsa aut in ipsa substantia, hoc est, vitaa panem." And 
again (ii., 8, ib., p. 177) : " Ittiovolov dprov, ex eadem ovaia panem, id est, de 
vita Dei, consubstantialem vitam. . . . Graecum igitur evangelium habet t7rt- 
ovaiov, quod denominatum est a substantia, et utique Dei substantia : hoc 
Latini vel non intelligentes vel non valentes exprimere non potuerunt dicere, 
et tantummodo quotidianum posuerunt, non tTriovaiov." Setting himself to de- 
fend the bjioovoiov of the Kicene Creed against the charge of novelty, Victo- 
linus seizes with avidity a derivation of l-iovoiov which furnishes him with a 
sort of precedent. 

Again, in St. Ambrose we find distinct references to this derivation. In 
a treatise ascribed to this father {De Sacram.,\\,4, § 24, ii., p. 378) we read, 
"Quare ergo in oratione dominica, quae postea sequitur, ait Panem nostrum? 
Panem quidem sed i-movoiov, hoc est, supersubstantialem. Xon iste panis 
est qui vadit in corpus ; sed ille panis vitoe aeternae qui animae nostrae substan- 
tiam fulcit. Ideo Greece linovaioQ dicitur : Latinus autem hunc panem quo- 
tidianum dixit [quem Graeci dicunt advenientein] ;* quia Graeci dicunt rrjv tTri- 
ovaav i'/fiepav advenientem diem. Ergo quod Latinus dixit et quod Graecus, 
utrumque utile videtur. Graecus utrumque uno sermone significavit, Latinus 
quotidianum dixit. Si quotidianus est panis cur post annum ilium sumis,quem- 
admodum Graeci in oriente facere consuerunt ? Accipe quotidie, quod quo- 
tidie tibi prosit, etc." The writer seems here to combine the two derivations 
of i-n-iovaiov, as though the word could have a double etymology. At least I 
can not interpret " Graecus utrumque uno sermone significavit" in any other 
way.f The authorship of the treatise, however, is open to question, as it con- 
tains some suspicious statements and expressions. But, whoever may have 
been the writer, the work appears to be early. If he owed the expression su- 
persubstantialis to St. Jerome's revision, as was probably the case, even this 
is consistent with the Ambrosian authorship, as several of his father's works 
were written after St. Jerome had completed the Gospels. 

Again, in an unquestioned treatise of St, Ambrose (De Fide, iii., 15, § 127, 
ii.,p. 51 9), written in the years 377, 378, this father, defending the word o/xoov- 
aiov against the Arians, uses the same argument as Victorinus : "An negare 
possunt ovaiav lectam, cum et panem tTriovmov Dominus dixerit et Moyses 
scripserit vpug. 'iataQk poi Xaoq -keoiovoioq ? Aut quid est ovaia, vel unde dicta, 
nisi ovaa del, quod semper maneat ? Qui enim est, et est semper, Deus est ; 
et ideo manens semper ovaia dicitur divina substantia. Propterea Ittiovo-ioq 
panis, quod ex verbi substantia substantiam virtutis manentis cordi et animae 
subministret ; scriptum est enim, Et panis confirmat cor hominis (Psa. ciii., 
15)." The etymological views of a writer who derives ovaia from ovaa ad 
can have no value in themselves. The notice is only important as "showing 
that the derivation from ovaia Was gaining ground. At the same time, like 
the passage of Victorinus, it suggests a motive which would induce many to 

* The words in brackets are omitted in many MSS., and seem to be out of place. 

t Pfeiffer, in the Thesaur. Theol. Philol, ii., p. 117 (Amstel., 1702), explains " utrumque 
uno sermone significavit" by "crastinum scil. dicendo, hodiernum includens diem," 
which seems to me meaningless. 



accept the etymology offered, as furnishing a ready answer to an Arian ob- 
jection. 

When St. Jerome (about A.D. 383) revised the Latin of the New Testa- 
ment, he substituted super substantial em for quotidianum in the text of St. Mat- 
thew ; but, either prevented by scruples from erasing a cherished expression 
from the Latin Bibles, or feeling some misgiving about the correctness of his 
own rendering, he allowed quotidianum to stand in St.Luke. Altogether his 
language is vague and undecided whenever he has occasion to mention the 
word. In his Commentary on the Epistle to Titus {Op., vii., p. 726), writ- 
ten about A.D. 387, he thus expresses himself: " Unde et illud, quod in evan- 
gelio secundum Latinos interpretes scriptum est Partem nostrum quotidianum 
da nobis hodie, melius in Grteco habetur Panem nostrum tiriovmov, id estprce- 
cipuum, egregium, peculiar em * eum videlicet qui de cselo descendens ait (Joh. 
vi., 51), Ego sum panis qui de ccelo descendi. Absit quippe ut nos, qui in cras- 
tinum cogitare prohibemur, de pane isto qui post paululum concoquendus et 
abjiciendus est in secessum in prece dominica rogare jubeamur. Nee m ultima 
differt inter iiziovviov et Trepwixjiov ; pragpositio enim tantummodo est muta- 
ta, non verbum. Quidam i-movoiov existimant in oratione dominica panem 
dictum, quod super omnes ovo'iag sit, hoc est super universas substantias. 
Quod si accipitur, non multum ab eo sensu differt quern exposuimus. Quid- 
quid enim egregium est et praecipuum, extra omnia est et super omnia." And 
similarly in his Commentary on St. Matthew {Op., vii., p. 34), written a few 
years afterward (A.D. 398) : " Quod nos super sub stantialem expressimus, in 
Grseco habetur L7riowiov,quo& verbum Septuaginta interpretes Trepiovaiov fre- 
quentissime transferunt. . . . Possumus supersubstantialem panem et aliter 
intellegere, qui super omnes substantias sit et universas superet creaturas. 
Alii simpliciter putant, secundum apostoli sermonem dicentis Habentes victum 
et vestitum his contend simus, de prsesenti tantum cibo sanctos curam agere." 
Hitherto he is apparently consistent with himself in connecting the word with 
ovala, but in a later work, the Commentary on Ezekiel {Op., v., p. 209), writ- 
ten from A.D. 411-414, he says, " Melius est ut intelligamus panem justi eum 
esse qui dicit, Ego sum panis vivus qui de ccelo descendi, et quern in oratione 
nobis tribui deprecamur, Panem nostrum substantivum, sive superventurum, da 
nobis, ut quern postea semper accepturi sumus, in prsesenti sseculo quotidie 
mereamur accipere. " And in a still later work against the Pelagians, writ- 
ten about A.D. 415, he speaks with the same uncertainty (hi., 15, ii., p. 800): 
"Sic docuit apostolos suos ut quotidie in corporis illius sacrificio credentes 

audeant loqui Pater noster, etc Panem quotidianum, sive super omnes 

substantias, venturum apostoli deprecantur ut digni sint assumtione corporis 
Christi." In one point only is he consistent throughout. He insists on a 
spiritual, as opposed to a literal, interpretation of the bread. 

The indecision, or the scruple, or the carelessness which led Jerome to re- 
tain quotidianum in one evangelist while he removed it from another, bore 
strange fruit. Jerome's revised Latin Version became the Bible of the West- 
ern churches. The knowledge of the Greek tongue died out. The fact that 
the same word iinovoiov occurs in both Gospels passed out of memory. The 

* It thus appears that the sense which St. Jerome himself attaches to his rendering 
supersubstantialem is different from that which some theologians have assigned to it. 



APPENDIX. jk ? 

difference which was found m the Latin Vulgate came to be regarded as a 
difference in the language of the evangelists themselves. As such it is com- 
mented upon by the most learned Latin writers in successive ages. So it is 
treated even by his OAvn younger contemporary Cassianus, who, though him- 
self not ignorant of Greek, yet in a treatise written soon after the death of St. 
Jerome, writes {Collate ix., 21), "Panem nostrum imovmov, id est, supersub- 
stantialem, da nobis hodie ; quod alius evangelista quotidianum. '' So, again 
it is taken by Anselm in the 11th or 12th century (Comm.in Matth.),by Nic- 
olas of Lyra in the 14th (Comm. in Matth.), and by Dionysius Carthusianus 
in the 15th (Enarr. in Matth.),* all of whom remark on the different epithets 
used by St. Matthew and St. Luke. 

But the most remarkable instance of this blunder is furnished by a contro- 
versy between the two foremost men of their time, St. Bernard and Abelard. 
The Abbot of Clairvaux, having occasion to visit the convent of the Paraclete, 
of which Heloise was abbess, observed that in repeating the Lord's Prayer at 
the daily hours a change Avas made in the usual form, the word " supersub- 
stantialem" being substituted for "quotidianum." As Heloise had made this 
change under the direction of Abelard, she communicated the complaint to 
him. Upon this he wrote a letter of defense to St. Bernard, which is extant 
(P. Abaelardi Opera, i., p. Gl 8, ed. Cousin). He pleads that the form in St. 
Matthew must be more authentic than the form in St. Luke, the former hav- 
ing been an apostle, and heard the words as uttered, the latter having de- 
rived his information at second-hand — "de ipso fonte Matthseus, de rivnlo 
fontis Lucas est potatus." Hence St. Matthew's form is more complete, and 
contains seven petitions, while St. Luke's has only five. Por this reason, the 
Church, in her offices, has rightly preferred St. Matthew's form to St. Luke's. 
"What may have been the reason, therefore," he proceeds, "that while Ave 
retain the rest of St. Matthew's words, Ave change one only, saying quotidia- 
num for super substantial em, ^ let him state who can, if indeed it is sufficient to 
state it. For the Avord quotidianum does not seem to express the excellence 
of this bread, like supersubstantiakm ; and it seems to be an act of no slight 

* See Pfeiffer, 1. c, p. 119 seq. 

t We may pardon the mistake of Abelard more readily AA-hen we find that a learned 
modern historian, commenting on the incident, is guilty of a still greater error. Mil- 
man (History of Latin Christianity, iii., p. 2G2, ed. 2) remarks on this dispute: "The 
question was the clause in the Lord's Prayer, our daily bread, or our bread day by 
day." Here two wholly different things are confused together. (1.) St.Matthew and 
St.Luke alike have kmovaiov. This was rendered quotidianum in both evangelists in 
the old Latin, as it is rendered daily in both in our English Version. But Jerome, by 
substituting supersubstantialem in St.Matthew, and retaining quotidianum in St.Luke, 
made an artificial variation, which misled Abelard. MeanAvhile the quotidianum of 
the Old Latin in St.MattheAV maintained its place in the Service-books, and puzzled 
Abelard by its presence. Abelard's remarks are confined solely to the epithet at- 
tached to ap-ov. (2.) There is a real difference between St.Matthew and St. Luke in 
another part of the sentence, the former having afaepov, this day, the latter to «a0' 
huepav, day by day. This distinction was obliterated by the Old Latin, which took 
the false reading arjfxepov in St.Luke, and so gave hodie in both evangelists. It reap- 
pears again in the original Vulgate of Jerome, which has hodie in StMatthew and coti- 
die in St.Luke (though once more obliterated in the Clementine recension). Of this 
difference Dean Milman seems to have had some not very clear idea, and to have con- 
fused it with the dispute about emova-tov, but Abelard does not mention it at all. 



178 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

presumption to correct the words of an apostle, and to make up one prayer 
out of two evangelists, in such a manner that neither seems to be sufficient in 
respect of it (the prayer), and to recite it in a form in which it was neither 
spoken by the Lord nor written by any of the evangelists, especially when, in 
all other portions of their writings which are read in church, their words are 
kept separate, however much they may differ in respect of completeness or 
incompleteness (impermixta sunt verba eorum, quacunque perfectione vel im- 
perfectione discrepent). Therefore, if any one blames me for innovating in 
this matter, let him consider whether blame is not rather due to the person 
who presumed out of two prayers written in old times to make up one new 
prayer, which deserves rather to be called his own than an evangelist's (non 
tarn evangelicam quam suam dicendam). Lastly, the discernment of the 
Greeks, whose authority (as St. Ambrose saith) is greater, hath, owing to the 
aforesaid reasons, as I suppose, brought the prayer of St Matthew alone into 
common use, saying rbv dprov ijpCJv rbv imovoiov, which is translated Panem 
nostrum supersnhstantialem." Strange it is, that, though quoting the Greek 
words of St. Matthew (apparently, however, at second-hand), Abelard did not 
take the trouble to consult the original of St. Luke, but here, as elsewhere,* 
allowed himself to follow the Vulgate implicitly. Strange too, but less strange, 
that he should not have recognized in the quotidianum of the Church services 
the remnant of an older version, which in this instance Jerome's revision had 
been powerless to displace. We do not hear that St. Bernard refuted his 
pertinacious adversary by exposing his error. It is improbable that he pos- 
sessed the learning necessary for this purpose, for in learning, at least, he was 
no match for his brilliant opponent. He probably fell back on the usage of 
the Church, and refused to cross weapons with so formidable an adversary. 

Yet, notwithstanding such notices as these, the marvel is that Jerome's su- 
persubstantialis took so little hold upon the Latin Church at large. When, 
after some generations, his revised Vulgate superseded the Old Latin, the word 
confronted students of the Bible in St. Matthew, and in this position it was 
commented upon and discussed. But here its influence ended. St. Augus- 
tine, on the morrow of Jerome's revision, still continues to quote and to ex- 
plain the petition with the word quotidianum, as St. Hilary t had quoted and 
explained it on the eve. Despite the great name of Jerome, whose authority 
reigned paramount in Western Christendom for many centuries in all matters 
of scriptural interpretation, quotidianum was never displaced in the Lord's 
Prayer as used in the offices of the Church. Boman, Gallican, Ambrosian, 
and Mozarabic Liturgies all retained it. The word supersubstantialem is not, 
so far as I can learn, once substituted for quotidianum in any public services 
of the Latin Church. % The use which Abelard introduced at the Paraclete 

* Abelard uses similar language elsewhere, In Diebus Rogat. Serm., Op., i., p. 471: 
"Non sine admiratione videtur accipiendum quod apud nos in consuetudinem eccle- 
sise venerit ut quum orationem dominicam in verbis Matthsei frequentemus, qui earn, 
ut dictum est, perfectius scripserit, unum ejus verbum cseteris omnibus retentis com- 
mutemns, pro supersubstantialem scilicet, quod ipse posuit, dicentes quotidianum, sicut 
Lucas ait, etc." On the other hand, in the Expositio Orationis Dominicce (i., p. 599 
seq.), he comments on quotidianum, and does not even mention supersubstantialem. 

t Fragm., Op., ii., p. 714. 

t It has been pointed out to me that the words "panem nostrum quotidianum su- 
\ 



APPENDIX. 



was obviously isolated and exceptional, and appears to have been promptly 
suppressed. The devotional instinct of the Church would seem to have been 
repelled by a scholastic term so little in harmony with our Lord's mode of 
speaking, and so ill adapted to religious worship. Even in the Catechismus 
ad Parochos, issued by the Council of Trent as a manual for the guidance of 
the "Roman clergy, and containing a very full exposition of the Lord's Pray- 
er, the word quotidianum is retained, while the alternative supersubstantialem 
is not once mentioned, though a eucharistic application is given to the peti- 
tion, and the epithet quotidianum explained in accordance therewith.* 

The pre-Reformation versions of the Lord's Prayer in the languages of 
Western Europe, being derived from the Latin, naturally follow the render- 
ing which the translator in each case had before him. If taken from the Old 
Latin or from the Service-books, they give daily; if from the Vulgate, stiper- 
substantial. Among a large number of versions and paraphrases of the Lord's 
Prayer in the various Teutonic dialects,t the latter rendering occurs very 
rarely, and then (for the most part) only in situ in the Gospel of St. Mat- 
thew, as, e. g. , " ofer-Avistlic" in the Lindisfarne Gospels, and "over other sub- 
staunce'' in Wicliffe. 

The early Reformers also, for the most part, adopted the familiar render- 
ing. In Luther's Version it is interpreted " unser taglich brodt," and Calvin 
also advocates the derivation from iirdvai. So, too, it is taken in the Latin 
of Leo Juda. Our own Tyndale rendered it in the same way, and in all the 
subsequent English versions of the Reformed Church this rendering is retain- 
ed. On the other hand, the derivation from ovaia was adopted by Beza,J 
whose interpretation, however, in this particular instance, does not appear to 
have influenced the Reformed versions. § 

To sum up the results of this investigation into the testimony of the most 
ancient versions : The Syrian, the Egyptian, the Latin churches, are distinct 
from one another, yet all alike bear witness in the earliest forms of the Lord's 
Prayer to the one derivation of linovaiov as against the other. In the Syri- 
an churches we have testimony from two distinct sources. The Egyptian 
churches likewise tell the same tale with a twofold utterance. All may be 
regarded as prior to Origen, the first Greek father who discusses the meaning 

persubstantialem" occur in the Breviary in the Orationum Actio post Missam, the two 
epithets heiug combined ; hut this is only an indirect reference to the Lord's Prayer. 

* It is worthy of notice, as showiug how little favor this rendering found, that a 
Roman Catholic commentator of the 16th century, Maldonatus (on Matth. vi., 11), sup- 
poses that Jerome never intended to place super substantialem in the text, and that 
it got there by carelessness: "Hieronymus supersubstantialem vertit, quamquam in 
eo veterem versionem noluit corrigere. Itaque Incaute quidam nostro tempore in 
vulgata editione pro quotidiano supersubstantialem posueruut." This view is quite 
grouudless. 

t See the collection in Marsh's Origin and History of the English Language, p. 76 
seq. ; and also The Gospel of St.Matthew in Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian Versions 
(Cambr.,185S). 

t Indeed, he himself, though he explaius the word "qui nostris viribus sustentan- 
dis sufficiat," yet retains quotidianum in the text, saying "Mihi religio fuit quicquam 
immutare in hac precationis formula in ecclesia Dei tauto jam tempore usurpata." 

§ In Tomson's Version of the N. T., however, which is attached to the Geneva Bible, 
though it is rendered " dayly," a marginal note is added, " That that is meete for our 
nature for our dayly foode, or such as may suffice our nature and complexion." 



1 80 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF TEE N. TEST. 

of the word. In the Syrian and the Latin churches we have seen how, at a 
later date, the scholastic interpretation was superposed upon the traditional, 
"tout with different success. In the former it ultimately prevailed ; in the lat- 
ter it never obtained more than a precarious footing. The Egyptian churches, 
being more effectually isolated from Greek influences, preserved the tradi- 
tional sense to the end. 

These versions alone have any traditional value. But others, which were 
made in the fourth century and later, are not without their importance, as 
showing how widely the older interpretation still prevailed in the Greek 
Church, notwithstanding the tendency in the Greek fathers towards the deri- 
vation adopted or invented by Origen. It is a remarkable fact that all the 
remaining versions which can with probability be assigned to the fourth or 
fifth centuries give the temporal sense to iiciovawv, or (in other words) derive 
it from lirisvai. In the Gothic, whose date is about the middle of the fourth 
century, it is rendered by sinteinan, " continual;" in the Akmenian, which 
was made some time before the middle of the fifth, being begun from the Syr- 
iac, and afterwards revised and completed from the Greek, it is likewise trans- 
lated "continual, daily;" and similarly in the .ZEthiopic, whose date is some- 
what uncertain, it is given "of each day" in both St. Matthew and St.Luke. 

Thus tradition is not only not adverse to the derivation which etymological 
considerations seem to require, but favors it very decidedly. With this strong 
confirmation, we need not hesitate to adopt it. On the other hand, it is only 
fair to notice that, though tradition is in accordance with itself and with ety- 
mology so far as regards the derivation from tirdvai, yet the same degree of 
coincidence can not be claimed on behalf of the derivation from the feminine 
tmovca, and the more precise meaning for the coming day thus obtained. 
Yet this meaning seems to be supported by the oldest tradition, and to offer 
a better justification of the coinage of a new word. At the same time, when 
the word was once in use, it would require a conscious effort of the mind to 
separate two etymologies so intimately connected, and the close alliance of 
meaning, for the coming day and for the coming time, would encourage a cer- 
tain vagueness of conception within these narrow limits. It was only when 
the meaning was stereotyped by translation into another language that it 
would assume definitely the one or the other of these two allied senses. 

Thus the familiar rendering " daily," which has prevailed uninterruptedly 
in the Western Church from the beginning, is a fairly adequate representation 
of the original ; nor, indeed, does the English language furnish any one word 
which would answer the purpose so well. 

II. 

The word Ittiovcioc, was connected, as we have seen, by several of the fa- 
thers with Trepiovmog. I hope that sufficient reasons have been given already 
for rejecting this connection as based on a false analogy. But still the word 
Trepiovaiog is important in itself, and (as its meaning has been somewhat mis- 
understood by modern as well as by ancient commentators) I take this oppor- 
tunity of explaining what seems to be its proper force. 

Origen (De Orat., 27, i., p. 246), in the passage of which I have already 
quoted the context (p. 163 seq.), distinguishes these two words. iTiioibatoQ y 7n- 



APPENDIX. 



181 



piovatog, as follows : t) fj.ev tov tig rr)v ovalav ovfifiaXXofUvov aprov SrjXovcra, 
i) di tov irepl ti)v ovaiav Karayivofitvov Xabv kciZ koiviovovvto. <xvt(jJ. With 
this brief account of the word he contents himself. Apparently he under- 
stands irtpiovvioQ to mean "connected with and participating in absolute be- 
ing, " thus assigning to it a sense closely allied to that which he has given to 
tTriovctoQ. This meaning may be dismissed at once. It does not correspond 
with the original Hebrew, and it is an impossible sense to attach to the word 
itself. Nevertheless, it is taken up by Victorinus, who writes (c. Arium, i., 
'6\,Bibl. Vet.Patr., viii., p. 163, ed.Galland.), " Sic rursus et Paullus in Epis- 
tola ad Titum populum irtpioiiaiov, circa substantiam, hoc est circa vitam con- 
sistentem populum ;" and again (ii., 8, ib., p. 177)j "Latinus cum non intelli- 
geret litpiovoiov bxXov, irtpiovviov, tov irepibvTa [read Trepi tivra?] id est, circa 
vitam quam Christus et habet et dat, posuit populum abundantem" And 
Cyril of Alexandria on St.Luke (Mai, ii., p. 2G6),in the context of a passage 
already quoted (p. 170), likewise connects it with iiriovviog, giving it an equal- 
ly impossible sense, clvti tov tmovaiov tov irtpiovaiov zIttwv, tovHoti tov ctp- 
KovvTa ical tov TtXtiwg tx^iv oi>x yTTw/xevov. 

On the other hand, Jerome (on Tit. ii., 14, vii., p. 725 seq.) says that, hav- 
ing thought much over the word 7rspiovcnov, and consulted "the wise of this 
world"' whether they had met with it elsewhere, without getting any satisfac- 
tion, he betook him to the passages in the Old Testament where it occurs, 
and by a comparison of these arrived at the meaning egregium, prcccipuum, 
peculiarew, a sense which (as we have seen) he gives to t7riov<nov also. 
Though wholly wrong as applied to l7riovcnov, this meaning is fairly adequate 
to represent 7rtpiovo~iov ; but it is clear from the context that Jerome does 
not seize the exact force of the word, which appears also to have escaped later 
commentators. 

We may reasonably infer from the notices of Origen and Jerome that this 
word was unknown out of Biblical Greek, and we have therefore no choice 
but to follow the method of the latter, and investigate the passages of the Old 
Testament where it occurs. 

The expression Xabg irepiovaioQ is found four times in the LXX. : Exodus 
xix., 5 ; Deut. vii., 6 ; xiv., 2 ; xxvi., 18. In the first passage it is a render- 
ing of the single word F&? 1 ?, in the three last of ti^^p D2. Moreover, in 
Psa. cxxxiv.(cxxxv.), 4, inb^pb is translated elg Trepiovo-iaanbv tavTif}. In 
all these passages the reference is to the Israelites as the peculiar people of 
God. Once more, in Eccles. ii., 8 we have cvvrjyayov fxoi icaiye apyvpiov 
Kaiye xP VGl0V Kat Ktpiovaicto-fwvg j3aaiXeu>v Kai toiv xwpwv, where again irtpi- 
ovaiaajJLovg represents •"&?*&, but in this instance without any reference to the 
chosen people. These appear to be the only passages in the LXX. where ntpi- 
ovffiog, -Kipiovaiaafiog occur. But Tfe*\0 is found, besides, in two other places : 
in Mai. iii., 17, where again it refers to the chosen people, and where it is 
rendered tig 7repnroir)(nv ; and in 1 Chron. xxix., 3, where Solomon says, "I 
have artbp [translated in our version ' ' of mine own proper good"], gold and 
silver which I have given to the house of my God, over and above all that I 
have prepared for the holy house," rendered by the LXX. eori fxoi o -Kipi-xt- 
7roirjpai xpwiov Kai apyvpiov, k.t.X. 

Of these two renderings which the LXX. offers for F&Mp-, the one is adopt- 



182 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 

ed by St. Paul, Tit. ii., 14, Xabg irepiovatog , the other by £t. Peter, 1 Pet. ii., 
9, Xabg tig TrtpiTtolnaiv. The reference in St. Peter is to Exod. xix., 5, where, 
however, the rendering 7repiovaiog is found in the LXX. 

The Hebrew root ^30, from which inb^D comes, is not found in the Bible. 
But the senses of kindred roots in Hebrew, such as 15D, and of other deriva- 
tives of this same root in the allied languages, point to its meaning. It sig- 
nifies "to surround on all sides," and so to "gather together, set apart, re- 
serve, appropriate." 

In grammar, the Rabbinical expression for a proper name is Jl^b d£J. 
In logic, the predicable proprium is designated W?M\0 by them. 

Applied to property, the word Tb^O would denote the private treasure 
which a person acquires for himself, or possesses by himself alone, as distin- 
guished from that which he shares with others. Of a king, we might say 
that it was the " fiscus" as distinguished from the " SBrarium," the privy purse 
as opposed to the public treasury. It is something reserved for his private 
uses. In two of the passages where it occurs, Eccles.ii., 8; 1 Chron. xxix., 
3, it refers to kings ; and in the latter it seems to be carefully distinguished 
from the money which would naturally be devoted to expenditure on public 
works. 

Thus there is no great difficulty about the original Hebrew word. On the 
other hand, it is less easy to see how the same idea can be represented by the 
Greek Trtpiovo-iog. Jerome speaks as though the leading notion of the word 
were "superiority," derived from Trepiuvai in the sense "to excel." Obvi- 
ously this meaning would not correspond to the original. 

We arrive at a more just conception of its force by considering a synonym 
which Jerome himself points out. This same Hebrew word, which in the 
LXX. is given Trtpiovaov, was rendered by Symmachus t^aiperov (Hieron., 
Op., vi., p. 34, 726). Jerome indeed is satisfied with translating l^aipeTovbj 
prcecipuum or egregium, but its meaning is much more precise and forcible. 
It was used especially of the portion which was set apart as the share of the 
king, or general, before the rest of the spoils were distributed by lot or other- 
wise to the soldiers of the victorious army. The exemption from the com- 
mon mode of apportionment in favor of rank or virtue is the leading idea of 
the word. Thus, in Plutarch, Vit . Cor., 10, we are told that when Coriolanus, 
as a reward for his bravery, was asked to select from the spoils ten of every 
kind before the distribution to the rest (iZtXevOat dtica navra 7rpb rov vkp,tiv 
rolg dXXoig), he declined to do so, saying that he would take his chance with 
the others ; but he added, IZaiptrov piav airovpai \apiv, "I have one favor 
to ask as an exceptional boon." In the triumphant anticipation of Sisera's 
mother, " Have they not divided the prey ? to every man [lit., to the head of 
a man] a damsel or two, to Sisera a prey of divers colors, etc. " we have the 
idea which a Greek poet might express by t^aiperov dupvpa (e. g., iEseh., 
Eum., 380; comp. A gam., 927), the special treasure assigned to the captain 
over and above the distribution which was made to the rest, counted by heads. 
This sense of l^aiperov is too common to need farther illustration ; and I can 
not doubt that Symmachus selected it on this account as an appropriate word 
to express the idea of the original. The leading idea is not superiority, as 
Jerome seems to imagine, but exception. "Egregium," strictly interpreted, 






APPEXDIX. 183 



might represent it, but not " prtccipuum. " It is the " exsortem dncere hono- 
rem" of Virgil. This idea fitly expresses the relations of Jehovah to Israel, 
whom in the language of the Old Testament elsewhere he retained under his 
special care (see the notes on Clem. Rom., 29). 

The same conception seems to be involved in rrtpiovcrioc. This word may 
have been invented by the LXX. translators, or it may have had some local 
currency in their age ; but, if the latter was the case, the fact was unknown 
to Origen and Jerome, for they speak of Trepiovaioc as not occurring out of the 
Bible. In either case, it might be derived from nepiwv, on the analogy of 
iKovaiog, WeXovcnog, etc., or from ovaia, like Ivovaioc, avovaiog, etc. (see above, 
p. 200, 201). Thus its meaning would be either "existing over and above," 
or "possessed over and above," and the same idea of exception from the com- 
mon laws of distribution would be involved as in i^aiperog. 

St. Jerome mentions also* that in another passage Symmachus had adopt- 
ed the Latin word peculiarem as a rendering of iT?5D. He doubtless ventured 
on this bold expedient because the Greek language did not furnish so exact 
an equivalent as peculium , for l^aipsrov, adequate as it is in some respects, 
introduces the new idea of division of spoils, which is wanting in the original. 
On the other hand, the Latin peculium, being used to denote the private purse 
which a member of the family, whether slave or free, was allowed in particu- 
lar cases to possess and accumulate for his own use, distinct from the prop- 
erty which the paterfamilias administered for the good of the whole, approach- 
ed very closely to the meaning of the Hebrew ; and, moreover, there was a 
convenient adjective peculiar is derived therefrom. Impressed, it would ap- 
pear, with the value of the word which he had thus learned from Symmachus, 
Jerome himself has almost universally adopted peculium, peculiaris, as a ren- 
dering of i"lb!»0 in the Old Testament ; e. g., Exod. xix., 5, "Eritis mihi in pe- 
culium de cunctis populis ;"' 1 Chron. xxix., 3," Quae obtuli in domum Dei mei 
cle peculio ;" Deut. xxvi., 18 (comp. vii., G; xiv., 2), " Elegit te hodie ut sis 
ei ])o\)ulus pecul iaris,'' etc.t 

Our English translators, in adopting this word "peculiar" after the Vul- 
gate, were obviously aware of its appropriate technical sense. This appears 
from the mode in which they use it ; e. g., Psa. cxxxv., 4, "The Lord hath 
chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure'' (comp. Exod. 
xix., 5 ; Eccles. ii., 8, in both which passages the word "treasure" is added). 
Twice only have they departed from the word "peculiar" in rendering flb^D : 
in Deut. vii., 6, where it is translated " a sjiecial people," and in Mai. iii., 17, 
where it is represented by "jewels," but with a marginal alternative, " spe- 

* Hieron., Op., vi.,p. 34, "licet in qnodam loco peculiare interpretatus sit," ib., vi., 
p. 726, " in alio volumine Latino sermone utens peculiarem interpretatus est." Differ- 
ent interpretations of this second passage have been given, but, compared with the first, 
it can only mean that " in another book of Scripture Syinmachus adopted a Latin ex- 
pression, translating the word by peculiarem,'''' just in the same way as Ignatius, writ- 
ing in Greek, uses deo-tprwp, 6en6<rna, aKnema. (Polyc, 6), because the Greek language 
did not supply such convenient terms to express his meaning. It is extremely improb- 
able that Symmachus wrote any work in Latin, as some have supposed. 

t The normal rendering in the Old Latin (which was translated from the LXX.) was 
abundans : see, e. g., Exod. xix., 5 ; Tit. ii., 14; and the quotation of Victorinus given 
above (p. 174-5). This would be a very natural interpretation of weptoicnos to any one 
unacquainted with the Hebrew. 



184 LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE K TEST. 

rial treasure.'' In this last passage the rendering should probably be," And 
they shall be to me, saith the Lord of Hosts, in the day which I appoint, for 
a peculiar treasure," and not, as our version has it, "And they shall be mine, 
saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels." In Tit. ii., 
14, Xadg Trtpiovcioc, and 1 Pet. ii., 9, Xaug e(g TrspnroirjGiv, where (as I have 
already observed) we have two distinct Greek renderings of the same Hebrew, 
the expressions are once more united in our version, which, following Tyn- 
dale, translates both by "a peculiar people." Strangely enough, St. Jerome, 
who introduces peculium, peculiai-is, in the Old Testament, has other and di- 
verse renderings in both these passages of the New ; populus acceptabilis in 
the one case, and populus adquisitionis in the other. His New Testament 
was executed before his Old ; and it would appear that in the interval he had 
recognized the value of the rendering suggested by Symmachus, and adopted 
it accordingly. 



INDEX I.* 



Matt, i., 1 . . 
i., 2, 3 



Pagre 

.... 93 
... 137 

i., 6 95 

i., 22.. 87 (bis), 109 

ii.,4 94 

ii.,5 109 

ii.,6 137 

ii.,15 .84,109 

ii.,17 109,135 



iii.,1 90 

iii.,3 109 

iii.,4 105 

iii.,13 90 

iii.,14 91 

iii.,15,16 116 



iv., 5. 
iv.,6. 



100 
112 
102 
148 
101 



iv., o 

iv., 13 . . . 

v., 1 

v., 15.... 52-3, 101, 
107, 144. 

v., 16 52-5 

v.,32 73 

vi.,11 163-180 

vi.,13 44 

vi.,16, 18 116 

vi.,25 145,167 

vi.,31 145 

vi.,34.145,166,167 

viii.,12 97 

ix.,16 125 

x.,4 121,122 

x.,9 85 

x.,16 120 

x.,29 141,142 

xi.,2 94 

xii.,1,5,10,11,12.127 

xii.,18 124 

xiii., 20 .... 57, 149 

xiii., 21 149 

xiii., 24, 25.... 71 

xiii., 33 144 

xiii., 42, 50.... 97 

* I owe this index of 



Pagre 

Matt, xiii., 55 137 

" xiv.,8 120 

" xv., 3, 6 Ill 

" xv., 21 148 

< ; xv., 22 121 

" xv., 27 118 

" xv., 35 74 

" xvi.,9,10 73 

" xvi.,14 135 

" xvi.,16 94 

" xvi., 17 137 

" xvi.. 25 64 

" xvi., 26 56,64 

" xvii., 1 102 

" xvii., 10 131 

" xvii., 21 43 

" xvii., 24 seq. . . . 143 

"• xvii., 25 150 

" xviii., 6,7 150 

" xviii., 24 seq. . . 143 
(bis). 

" xviii., 33 46 

" xix.,8 87 

" xix., 9.. 73 

" xix., 17 44 

" xix,, 19 137 

" xx., 2, 9, 10, 13. 142 

" xx., 20 46 

" xxi.,4...86,87,109 

" xxi., 12 ....79,101 

" xxi.,33se?.... 72 

" xxii., 1 seq 73 

" xxii., 9, 10.... 71 

" xxii., 13 97 

" xxiii., 6 53 

" xxiii., 7, 8 139 

". xxiii., 24. .154, 155 

" xxiii., 35 79 

" xxiv.,5 94 

' ; xxiv.,12 92 

" xxi v., 15 109 

" xxiv.,21...... 87 

' ; xxiv., 27 115 

< ; xxiv., 30 112 

passages to the kindness of 



Pasre 

Matt, xxiv., 51 97 

" xxv., 6 87 

" xxv., 14 seq. . . . 143 

" xxv., 30 ..... . 97 

< : xxv., 32 46 

" xxv., 46. ..... 51 

" xxvi., 15 123 

" .xxvi., 25, 139 

" xxvi., 36 125 

" xxvi., 48.... .. 71 

' ; xxvi., 49... 71, 139 

" xxvi., 50 114 

" xxvi., 56 86,87 

< ; xxvi., 63 94 

' ; xxvi., 64 112 

" xxvi., 69, 71... 103 

" xxvii., 9 44 

" xxvii., 15 105 

" xxvii., 27 57 

" xxvii., 33 138 

" xxvii., 35 109 

" xxviii.,19..40, 113 

MarkI.,1 44,94 

" L, 21 127 

" ii.,15, 16 104 

" ii.,21 125 

" ii.,23 127 

" iii.,2,4 127 

" iii.,5. 120 

" iii., 18 121 

" iv., 16 57 

" iv.,21 101.144 

" iv., 29 123 

" v., 13 101 

" vi., 3 137 

" vi.,27. 141 

'" vi.,37 142 

il vi., 52 120 

" vii.,9 Ill 

" vii.,26 135 

" vii.,31., 148 

li viii., 19, 20 ... . 73 

'• viii., 29 94 

Mr. A. A. Van Sittart. 



11 



LIGHTFOOT ON A FBESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 



Page 

Makk viii., 36., 56 

" ix.,2 102 

" ix.,5 .... 139 

" ix., 29 43 

" ix.,41 94,95 

" x.,51 139 

" xi.,4 101 

" xi.,15 101 

" xi.,21 139 

" xii., 26 112 

" xii., 39.. 53 

" xii.,42 141 

" xiii.,14. 109 

" xiii., 28 118 

" xiv., 5 142 

" xiv.,32 125 

" xiv., 45 139 

" xiv., 53, 54.... 116 

(; xiv., 66, 69 . . . . 103 

" xv., 6 105 

" xv., 16 57 

" xv-, 22 138 

" xvi., 9-20 42 

Lukei.,1 124 

" i.,39 102,137 

" i.,59 91 

" i.,63 147 

" i.,65 102 

" ii.,11 94 

" ii.,18 107 

" ii.,24 101 

" ii.,33 43 

" ii.,36 133 

" iii.,23 113 

l; iii.,24 136 

" iii.,26 137 

" iii.,27 136 

" iii.,30 136,138 

" iii.,33 137 

" iv.,5 102 

" iv.,9 100 

" iv.,11 112 

" iv.,20 147 

" vi.,15 121 

" vi.,16 105 

" vi.,17 101 

" vi.,36 76 

" vii.,4 149 

" vii.,5 101 

" vii.,33,34 90 

" vii., 41 142 

" vii., 45, 46 71 

" viii., 14 57 

" ix., 25 56 



Page 

Luke ix., 55 43 

x.,35 142 

xi.,3 163-180 

xi.,33 101,144 

xi.,51 79 

xii.,6 141,142 

xii.,35 107 

xiii.,6 119 

xiii., 21 144 

xiii., 23 90 

xiii., 28 98 

xv., 8 143 (bis) 



Jo 



xv., 9... 
xvi., 6, 7 . 



143 
144 



xvii.,1,2 150 



xviii.,12 85 

xviii.,31 109 

xix., 13. 52, 143, 150 

xix., 15 52 

xx., 37 112 

xxi., 19 85 

xxii., 1 139 

xxii.,43,44 43 

xxiii.,2 94 

xxiii.,5 

xxiii., 17.. .. 

xxiii.,33 

xxiii ,34. . . . 
xxiii., 35, 39. 
xxi v., 10 



138 

105 

138 

43 

94 

93 



Ni..3 81, 110 (bis) 

i.,7 107,110 

i.,8 106 

i.,9 107 

i.,10 110 (bis) 

i.,11 72 

i., 14 63 

i.,16 96 

i.,17 94,110 

i.,18 37,42 

,i.,21 95 

i.,25 94,95 



i., 29. 

i.,39 

i.,43 

i.,50 

ii., 6 ..... . 

iii.,2 

iii., 8 

iii.,10 99 

iii., 19 107 

iii.,26 139 

iv.,5 125 

iv.,6 74 



124 
139 
137 
139 
144 
139 
63 



Page 

John iv., 27 104 

iv.,31 139 

iv.,37 106 

v., 1 105 

v.,3,4 44 

v., 35 106 

v., 44 106 

vi.,4 105 

vi.,7 142 

vi.,14 95 

V\.,22seq 103 

vi.,25 139 

vi..51 176 

vi.,69 94 

vii.,1 138 

vii., 19, 20. 151 

vii., 25 151 

vii., 26 94 

vii., 40 95 

viii., 1-11 42 

viii., 58 76 

ix.,2 139 

ix., 5 107 

ix.,22 94 

x., 16 73 

xi., 8 



139 

xi.,14 153 

xii.,5 142 

xii., 6 124 

xii.,13 100 

xii., 40 120 

xiii., 12 74 

xiii., 23. 25 74 

xiii.,27l 114 

xiv., 5, 6 96 

xiv., 16 seq. 58, 60, 61 

xiv., 18 60 

xiv., 26 58, 60 

xv., 3 Ill 

xv., 26.... 58, 60, 61 

xvi.,.l,4 5 6 47 

xvi., 7 58, 60 

50 

94 
125 

57 
105 

57 



xvi., 30 

xvii., 3. .... 
xviii., 1 . . . . 
xviii., 28, 33 
xviii., 39 . . . 

xix., 9 

xix., 17 138 

xix.,36. ...... 87 

xx., 16 139 

xx., 22 63-4 

xx., 25 47 

xxi., 15, 16, 17.. 137 
xxi., 20 74 



IXDEX I. 



Page 

Acts i.. 3 125 

" i.,13 121 

" i.,18 85 

" ii.,3 .... 123 

« ii.,11 135 

" ii.,23 108 

" ii., 27, 31 78 

" ii., 38 94 

" ii., 43 108 

'• ii., 47 90 

" iii..6 94 

" iii., 13, 2G 124 

" iv.,25,27 79 

" iv.,27,30 124 

" vii.,26 91 

" vii.,45 136 

" viii., 5 105 

" viii., 16 113 

" viii., 30 64 

" viii.,37 44 

" ix.,2 96 

" ix., 35 100,133 

" x.,2 79 

" x.,30 43 

" xi.,17 84,106 

" xi., 19 138 ! 

" xii.,4 139 ! 

" xii.,9 108 

" xii.,12 135 

" xii.,22 79 

11 xii.,25 135 

" xiii.,14 127 

" xiii.,21 133 

" xiii.,50 126 

" xiv.,13 126 

" xv., 3 138 

" xvi.,11 165 

" xvi.,35,38 141 

" xvii., 1 101 

" xvii., 2 127 

" xvii., 5 79 

" xvii., 19, 22 138 

" xvii., 23 79,150 

" xvii., 29 126 

" xviii., 12 140 

" xviii., 14 149 

" xix.,1 148 

" xix.,2 84 

" xix.,3,5 113 

" xix., 9... 96 

" xix., 15 65 

" xix.,23 96 

" xix., 30 79 

" xix., 31 140 

" xix., 33 79 



Acts xix., 35 , 
" xix., 38 . 
" xx., 2. . . 
" xx., 15.. 
" xxi., 2.. 

xxi., 

xxi., 



15, 
,18. 



" xxi. 

" xxi., 28 

" xxi.,31 

< : xxi., 31, 32 

" xxii., 24-26 .... 

" xxiii., 17-23.... 

" xxiii., 35 

" xxiv.,5,6 

" xxi v.. 22. 

" xxv., 22 

" xxv., 26 

i: xxvi.,24,25.... 

" xxvii.,12 

" xxvii.,20 

' ; xxviii.,13 

' ; xxviii,.15..138, 

' ; xxvih„16 ' 

" xxviii., 16,29... 



Eom. i., 29 148, 149 



Page I 

140 
140 
135 
165 
138 
116 
147 
165 

79 
151 
141 
141 
141 

57 
151 

96 

91 

68 

47 
138 
115 
147 
157 
141 

43 



]i..l 

ii., 8 

ii., 12 seq. . 

ii., 18 

ii., 22 

ii.,24 

ii., 26 

iii., 4, 6.... 
iii., 19 seq.. 

iii., 25 

iii.. 24-26 58 

iv..3.9 55 I 



67 
120 

93 

98 
126 
111 
120 
153 

93 
119 



iv.. Yo seq 

IT., 19 . . 

iv.,22... 

v., 9.. ., 
v., 15. ., 
v., 15-19. 
vi.. 1 seq. , 
vi.,2...'. 



.. 93 
.. 45 
.. 55 
.. 98 
.. 84 
.. 92 
.. 82 
.82,84 

vi.,3 82, 113 

vi.,4,6 82 

vi.,8 82,84 

vi.,12,13 124 

vi.,17,18 82 

vi.,21 154 

vi.,22 82 

vi..23 125 



187 

Page 

Rom. vii., 1 seq 93 

" vii.,4 82 

<; vii., 6 82,84 

" viii., 6 84 

" viii., 11 in 

" viii., 16 Gl 

" viii., 24 89 

" viii., 26 61 

" ix.,3 91 

' ; ix.,25 79 

" ix.,26 79,135 

" x.,9, 13 89 

" x.,15 47 

" xi.,2 112 

' ; xi.,7 120 

" xi.,8 122 

" xi.,20 149 

a xi.,25 120 

" xii.,2 77 

" xii..3 64 

" xii.,11 24 

" xii.,19 55,98 

" xiii., 11 84 

" xiv.,14 113 

" xiv.,22,23 70 

" xv., 4, 5 47 

' ; xv., 32 98 

" xvi., 1 104 

< ; xvi.,3,5,6,7,8,9.47,54 

" xvi., 7 138 

" xvi., 9 135 

" xvi., 10-16.... 47, 54 

" xvi., 19 120 

" xvi., 23 140 

1 Coe. i., 10 126 

" i.,13 113 

" i.,18 90 

" i.,28 1G8 

« ii.. 13-15 67 

" ii., 14, 15 67 

" iii., 5 84 

" iii., 17 47 

« iv.,3,4,5 67 

< ; iv.,8 153 

" v.. 9 99 

" vi.,1-6 67 

u vii., 5 43 

" vii., 31 64 

" vii., 32 146 

" viii., 6 110,112 

i; viii., 10, 11.... 106 

<• ix., 3 67 

< ; ix.,4 93 

" ix..22 81 



LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N. TEST. 



Page 

1 Cor. x., 2 113 

" x., 16 seq 47 

" x.,25, 27 67 

" x.,32 135 

" xi., 28-34 68-9 

« xi., 29, 31, 32.. 67 

" xii.,2 64 

" xii.,4se? 48,54 

" xii., 13 .... 113, 135 

" xii., 28 115 

z " xiii.,8 48 

" xiii.,9,12 6C^ 

" xiv., 7 75 

" xiv., 16 147 

" xiv., 20 75 

" xiv., 23 154 

" xiv., 24, 29.... 68 

" xiv., 36 72 

" xv., 2 81,89 

" xv., 4-20 ....85,86 

" xv., 22 81 

" xv., 24-28 48 

" xv., 40 75, 76 

" xv., 51 44 

" xvi.,1,2 48 

" xvi.,12 93 

" xvi., 15 152 

" xvi., 22 115 

2 Cor. i., 1 135 

i.,3-8 49 

i.,9 71-2 

i., 13 64 

L, 19 135 

i.,20 45 

i.,23 118 

ii., 6 93 

ii.,14... 119 

ii., 15 90 

iii.,1 49 

iii.,2 64 

iii.,5,6 49 

iii., 7 49 

iii., 11 72 

iii., 13 seq 49 

iii., 14 49,120 

iii., 18 49 

iv., 2 149 

iv., 3 49 

iv., 4 123 

iv., 8 65 

iv., 13 84 

iv., 15 . . . 
v., 6-11.. 
v., 14.... 



ill 

49 
83 



Page 

2 Con. v., 16 66 

" vi., 9 66 

" vi., 10 65 

" vii.,7 50 

" vii.,10 77 

" vii.,11 99 

" vii.,13,14 82 

" viii., 10-12.... 50 

" viii., 19 106 

" ix.,2-5 50 

" ix., 13 153 

" x.,5 125 

" x.,12 64,67 

" x., 13, 15. 16... 50 

« ' xi.,3. 112 

" xi., 4 76 

" xi., 9 125 

« xi., 16-18 50 

" xii., 1 45 

" xii., 2 seq 86 

" xii., 2,3 50 

" xii., 7 125 

" xii., 9 63 

" xii., 13 93 

" xii., 13, 14 125 

" xii., 15 71 

" xii., 17 81 

" xii., 18 81.99 

" xii., 20 ... . 120, 148 

" xiii.,9,11 126 

< ; xiii., 14 40 

Gal. i.,6 76 

" ii-, 7 84 

" ii., 16-21 83 

" iii., 3 83 

" iii., 6 . .' 55 

" iii., 10 seq 93 

" iii., 19 108 

" iii., 27 83,113 

" iv.,20 91 

" v., 13 83 

i: v., 20 120 

" v., 24 83 

ErHES.i.,1 37,168 

i., 11, 13 83 

" i.,23 52,96 

" ii.,5,8 89 

" ii., 5, 6, 13, 14.. 83 

" iii., 10 108 

" iii., 19 96 

" iv.,1,4,7 83 

" iv.,13 96 

" iv.,18 120 



Page 

Ephes. iv.,29 114 

" iv.,30 83 

" v., 15 65 

vi.,12 151 



Phil, i., 13 57 

" i.,14 92-3 

" i., 17 120 

" ii., 3 120 

" ii., 6 seq 78 

" ii., 9 98 

" ii., 13 50 

" ii., 15...115, 120 (bis) 

' ; ii., 30 45 

" iii., 2, 3 64 

" iii., 3 seq 50 

" iii., 14 151 

" iv.,2 138 

" iv.,2,3 114 

" iv.,6 146,167 

" iv., 19 170 (bis) 

Col. i., 13 83 

" i., 16,17 81,110 

" i.,19 95 

" ii., 5 125 

" ii., 8 120 

« ii., 9 96 

" ii., 9, 10 52 

" il,U seq 82 

" ii., 16 127 

" ii., 20 84 

" iii., 1,3 82 

" iii., 3 84 

" iii., 8 152 

" iii., 13 148 

" iii., 15 83 

" iv., 10 119,135 

" iv.,14 135 

IThess.u.,4 50 

" ii., 16 98 

" iv.,4 85 

" iv.,6 99 

2 Thess. i., 6 50 

" ii.,1,2 113 

" ii., b seq 97 

ii., 6 51 

ii., 7 51,151 

" iii., 11 65 



lTiM.i.,4.. 
" iii., 1 . 
" iii., 3.. 



155 

24 

127 









INDEX I. 




Pajre 






Pnjre 


1 Tim. Hi., 11.... 


.... 104 


Heb 


ix.. 1 


.... 106 


" iii., 13 ... . 


.... 150 




ix.,6-9,18. 


.... 89 


" iii., 16 


..42,152 


" 


ix., 28 


.... 124 


" v., 4 


.... 148 


" 


x., 1 


..89,106 


« v., 19..... 


.... 24 


" 


x.,30 


55 


" vi., 2 


.... 10G 


" 


xi., 10 


.... 97 


" vi.,5 


.... 106 


" 


xi.,3l 


.... 134 


•• vi., 17 ... . 


.... 149 




xii.,26 


.... 118 


2 Tim. i., 7, 9 


.... 83 


James L, 15 


77 


• ; ii.,19 


.... 106 




i.» 17 


77 


" iii.,4...:. 


.... 149 




ii.,2,3.... 


.... 50 


" iv.,11.... 


.... 135 




ii.,23 

ii., 25 


.... 55 
.... 134 


Trrus i.. 7 


.... 127 




iii., 5 


.... 123 


" i.,12 


.... 135 




iii., 14, 16 . 


.... 120 


" ii., 14.. 181, 182, 184 




v., 9 


.... 148 


" iii., 5 


.... 83 




v., 16 

v., 20 


.... 154 
55 


Philem. 2 


.... 156 








« 24 


.... 135 


IPe 


r- i-, 3 

i., 16 


.... 83 
.... 76 


IIeb.L,1 


.... 53 




i-,18 


.... 83 


" i 2 


110 




ii-,4 

ii., 9 


.... 113 


" ii.,10 


.... 110 


. 182, 184 


" ii.,16 


.... 123 




ii.,10 


.... 79 


" iii., 11 


.... 56 




ii.,16 


.... 149 


" iv.,3 


... 56 




ii., 21 


.... 83 


" iv.,8 


.... 136 




ii., 24 


.... 124 


" v., 2 


.... 152 




iii., 9 


.... 83 


" v., 12 


.... 152 




iii., 21 ... . 


.... 120 


;< vi,l 


.... 114 




iv., 8 


.... 55 


i; vi.,7 


.... Ill 




v., 7 


.146,167 


" vi.,8,16.... 


.... 106 


a 


v., 13 


....135 


il vii.,14 


..86,137 








" vii., 21-24.. 


.... 86 


2 Pet. ii., 1,3.... 


.... 51 


; - viii.,8 


.... 137 


u 


ii., 13 


.... 121 


•• viii., 13.... 


.... 50 


" 


iii., 12 ... . 


.... 114 



189 

Pagre 

1 Jonx ii., 1 58 

" iv.,9,10, 14... 81 

" v., 6 104 

" v., 7 39-41 

" v., 9, 10 51 

Jude12 119, 121 (bis) 

Eev.L,4 117 

" i.,15 51 

" ii., 13 52 

" ii., 26 117 

" iii., 12 117 

il iii., 17 51,99 

' ; iii., 21 117 

" iv.,4 52 

" iv.,5 107 

" iv.,11 152 

" v., 5 137 

' ; vi.,G 142,144 

" vii., 5 137 

' ; vii., 6 133 

" vii., 12, 14 97 

' ; vii., 15 62 

" viii., 10 107 

£i viii., 12 116 

" xi.,9,11 104 

" xi.,16 52 

" xiii., 6 62 

" xiv.,15,16 112 

" xvi., 10 52 

" xvii., 1 97 

u xvii., 6, 7 51 

" xviii., 2 51 

" xviii., 23 115 

" xix., 9 106 

" xxi.,3 63 

" xxi., 14, 1 9 seq. . . 97 

i; xxi., 24 90 



INDEX II. 



A. 

Abelard on iiriovoiog, 111 seq., 178. 
Acts of the Apostles, text of, 43. 
yEthiopic rendering of ittiovcioc, 180. 
Alford (Dean) on Revision, 56, 58, 6-4. 
Ambiguities of expression, 151 seq. 
Ambrose (St.) on ittiovgioc, 175 seq. 
Andrewes (Bishop), 30. 
Anselm, 177. 
Antigenidas, 28. 
Antiochene School, 1G9. 
Aorist confused with perfect 80 seq. ; its 
significance in St. Paul, 82 ; various 
misrenderings of, 83 seq. 
Apphia, Appia, 156. 

Archaisms in the English Version, 145 
seq. 

by, 108. 

by-and-by, 149. 

carefulness, 146. 

carriages, 147. 

chamberlain, 140. 

coasts, 148 seq. 

comforter, 60. 

debate, 148. 

deputy, 140. 

devotions, 150. 

dishonesty, 149. 

fetch a compass, 147. 

generation, 150. 

go about to, 151. 

grudge, 148. 

high-minded, 149. 

instantly, 149. 

let, 151. 

lewdness, 149. 

maliciousness, 149. 

minister, 147. 

nephew, 148. 

occupy, 52, 150. 

of, 107. 

offend, offense, 150. 

prevent, 151. 

room, 53, 147-8. 

scrip, 147. 

thought, 145 seq. 

writing-table, 147. 

Q 



Armenian rendering of ituovgioq, 180. 

Arnold (Mr.M.) quoted, 159 seq. 

Article (the definite), neglect of, 91 seq. ; 
insertion of, 103 seq. ; general igno- 
rance of, 105 seq. 

Asiarchs, 140. 

Aspirate (Hebrew) omitted in Greek, 134. 

Athanasius (St.) on Imovaiog, 169. 

Augustine (St.) on Jerome's revision, 25, 
26, 28, 32 ; on the heavenly witnesses, 
41 ; on Ittiovcioc, 178. 

Authorized Version : historical parallel 
to, 29 seq. ; translators' forebodings of, 
29 ; never authorized, 30 ; gradual re- 
ception of, 30 ; itself a revision, 32 ; 
faulty text of, 36 seq. ; distinctions 
created in, 46 seq. ; distinctions ob- 
literated in, 65 seq. ; errors of gram- 
mar in, 80 seq. ; errors of lexicography 
in, 118 seq. ; its caprice in proper 
names, titles, etc., 128 seq. ; archaisms 
in, 145 seq. ; ambiguities of expression 
in, 151 seq. ; faulty English in, 152 
seq. ; editorial errors and misprints in, 
153 seq. ; corrections in later editions 
of, 115, 155 seq. ; variable orthography 
of, 156 seq. ; pure English of, 159 seq. 

-aloe, adjectives in, 165. 

aipuv, 124. 

dickpaiog, 120. 

dWog, tTipog, 74 seq. 

avaicpiveiv, avciKpwig, 67 seq. 

avaTZLTtrtiv, 75 seq. 

avevtyictZv, 124. 

aaaapiov, 141 seq. 

avydZeiv, 123. 

ai'Xr], 7ro/'yuj/J7,73. 

B. 

Barjona, 136 seq. 

Basil (St.) on iiriovoiog, 167, 169. 

Bentley quoted, 91 seq. 

Bernard's (St.) controversy with Abelard, 

177, 178. 
Besaunt, 143. 
Beza, 179. 
Bible. See A ulhorized Version. 



192 



LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 



Bishops', 30, 41, 72, 73, 85, 114, 119, 
122, 129, 131, 139 (bis), 141, 153, 
154 (bis), 155. 
Coverdale's, 41, 73, 114, 119, 122, 129, 

141. 
Geneva, 31, 73, 85, 114, 119, 122, 129, 
131, 139 (bis), 141 f 153 ; Testa- 
ment (1557), 41, 114, 119, 122, 125, 
140, 141 ; Tomson's Testament, 
154 179. 
Great,' 41, 73, 114, 119, 122, 130, 139, 

141. 
Rheims, 54, 73, 78, 119, 122, 140, 144, 

150, 153. 
Tvndale's, 41, 53, 72, 73, 78, 79, 80, 
"109, 114, 119, 122, 126, 141, 144, 
150, 151, 152, 179, 184. 
Wicliffe's (and Wicliffite), 78, 79, 
119, 122, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 
150, 153, 179. 
Breviary, 178. 
fiaaraZeiv, 124. 
/3aroc, 144. 
fiiofiog, Qvota<TTr]piov,79. 

C. 
Calvin, 179. 
Cassianus, 177 seq. 
Christ and the Christ, 93 seq. 
Chrysostom (St.) on tTrtovcnog, 170 seq. 
Coins, rendering of, 141 seq. ' 
Corinthians, 2d Epistle to the, recurrence 

of words in, 48 seq. 
Coverdale's Bible. See Bible. 
Cretans, Cretes, Cretians, 135. 
Cureton, 172. 
Cyprian (St.), 41, 174. 
Cyril (St.) of Alexandria on iiriovmog, 

170; on Tttpiovoiog, 181. 
Cyril (St.) of Jerusalem on iTnovaiog, 

169. 
KaisaQai, 107. 

Kavavalog, Kavav'irrjg, 121. 
Karavv^iQ, Karavvaauv, 122. 
KarapTi^uv, 126. 
Kok-koQ , (TTrjGog, 74. 
Kopog, 144. 

KO^lVOl, GTTVpiStQ, 73. 

Kpiveiv and its compounds, 67 seq. 
KraaQai, KeKTrja9ai,85 seq. 
Xolvi%, 143, 144. 
X<»piov, 125. 

Damascene (St. John) on tmoixriog, 170. 
Damasus, Pope, 23, 28. 
Deaconesses, 104 seq. 



Didrachma, 143. 

Digamma, 166. 

Dionysius Carthusianus, 177. 

Drachma, 143. 

dtjp.og, Xaoc, 79. 

drjvdpiov, 142 seq. 

Sid, distinguished from viro, 107 seq. ; its 

connection with Inspiration, 109 seq. ; 

with the doctrine of the Word, 110 

seq. ; misrendered with the accusative, 

111 seq., 119 seq. 
fodfioXog, Saifxoviuv, 78 seq. 
SiafiEpiZtaQai, 123. 
Sucaiiofia, 120. 
Soatg, Supy/ia, 77 seq. 
SovXoi, didtcovoi, 73. 



Easter, 139. 

Egyptian Service-books, 173-4. 

Egyptian Versions, rendering of 7rapd- 

icXr/Tog, 62 ; of (nriXddeg , 120 ; of Itti- 

ovtriog, 173 seq., 179. 
Elias, Elijah, 131, 133. 
Ellicott (Bishop) on Revision, 35, 58, 88. 
English language, present knowledge Of 

the, 158 seq. 
Ephesians, Epistle to the, its destination 

and genuineness, 38. 
Ephrem Syrus, 173. 
Evangelists, parallel passages in the, 45, 

56 seq., 101, 103 seq., 125, 138. 
elvai, yiveaOai, 76 seq. 
tig wrongly translated, 112 seq. 
"EXXrjv, 'EXXrjvHrrrjg, 135. 
Iv wrongly translated, 113. 
i£aiptrog, 182, 183. 
t7Tfpwr??/ia, 120. 
i7ri wrongly translated, 112; the i elided 

in composition, 166. 
E7riy ivuxjKEiv, £7rLyvo)crig, 66 seq. 
tiriXanfidvtaQai, 123. 
iiziovaa, 165, 166. 
iTTiovGiog, 163 seq. 
t7rovcnwor)g, 166, 167. 
ipiOeia, 120. 

F. 

Five Clergymen, Revision of the, 58, 88 

seq. 
Fulke's answer to Martin, 130 seq. 

G. 

Gehenna, Hades, 78-9. 

Gender, change of, disregarded, 72. 

Geneva Bible, Testament. See Bible. 



INDEX II. 



93 



Gothic Version of Ittiovgioq, 180. 
Greek, Grecian, Greece, Grecia, 135. 
Greek forms of Hebrew names, 133 seq. 
Greek scholarship in England, 158 seq. 
Gregory the Great on the Latin Versions, 

28. 
Gregory Nyssen on iTTiovcnoQ, 169. 
Grote (Professor), 155. 
Gutturals (Hebrew), how dealt with in 

Greek, 133. 
yivwoKiiv, 65, 66. 
Ypaii/xarevc, 140. 

H. 
Hare (Archdeacon), 58. 
Hebrews, Gospel of the, its origin and 

value, 171 seq. ; rendering of tniovcwc, 

171. 
Heloise, 177. 
Hendiadys, 115. 
Hilary (St.) on tifriovcnoc, 178. 
Hypallage, 114 seq. 



Idols of the cave, market-place, 88 seq. 

Imperfect tense mistranslated, 90 seq. 

Isidore of Seville, 30. 

Ismenias, 28. 

Upov, vaoc, 79. 

lepocrvXtiv, 126. 

Icrdvai, 123. 

J. 

Jacob of Sarug, 173 seq. 

James, Jacob, 136. 

Jeremy, Jeremias, 135. 

Jerome (St.) revises the Latin Bible, 23 ; 
his detractors and opponents, 24 seq., 
32 ; version of the Book of Jonah, 25 ; 
corrects the text, 25 seq., 33, 39 ; does 
not translate, but revise, 26 ; his Jew- 
ish teachers, 26 ; his devotion to the 
work, 27 seq. ; gradual reception of 
his version, 28 seq., 34; his rendering 
Of TTCtpClKklTOQ, 61 ; of Ittiovgioq, 176 
seq. ; of irtpiovoiog, 176, 181 seq., 182 
seq. 

Jerusalem, spelling of, 134. 

Jesus, Joshua, 136. 

Jewry, 138. 

Johanan, John, etc., 136 seq. 

John, the father of St. Peter, 137. 

John (St.), disciples of, 42. 

John (St.), Gospel of: its genuineness, 
38 ; minute traits in, 74, 100 ; coinci- 
dences with the Revelation, 54, 62 seq. ; 



with the First Epistle, 54, 58 seq., 62 ; 
later than the other Gospels, 87. 

John (St.), Apocalypse of: broken syn- 
tax of, 117 seq. See John (St.), Gos- 
pel of. 

Jona, two distinct names, 137. 

Jude, Juda, Judah, Judas, 137. 

Juvencus, 174. 

L. 

Laodiceans, Epistle to the, 37, 38. 

Latin, Old, false readings in, 24 seq. ; re- 
tained in Service-books, 31 ; rendering 
of irapaicXrjTog, 61 ; of vmXdct c, 120 ; 
of iiriovmoQ, 174 seq. ; of 7repiovcioc, 
184; various reading in the Lord's 
Prayer, 177. 

Latin Vulgate. See Jerome (St.). 

Latinisms, 145 seq., 152, 159 seq. 

Lindisfarne Gospels, 179. 

Lord's Prayer, the early use of, 163. See 
also Appendix (passim). 

Lucas, Luke, 135. 

Luke (St.), Gospel of, two editions of, 43 
seq. ; its classical language, 102, 143. 

Luther's Bible, 41, 179. 

Xuyvoc, <pu>g, 106 seq. 

M. 

Magdalene, spelling and pronunciation 
of, 135. 

Maldonatus, 179. 

Marcus, Mark, 135. 

Mark (St.), Gospel of, the conclusion of 
the, 42. 

Marsh (Mr.) on revision, etc., 88 seq., 
158, 160, 161. 

Martin's (Gregory) attack on English 
Bibles, 130 seq." 

Mary, Miriam, 136. 

Matthew (St.), Gospel of, peculiarities of 
language in, 86 seq., 103 ; its relation 
to the Gospel of the Hebrews, 171. 

Measure, in what sense used, 143, 144. 

Metaphors obscured, 124 seq. 

Milman (Dean), error of, 177. 

Modius, 144. 

Mount, Sermon on the, its locality, 101 
seq. 

Miinster's Latin Bible, 129. 

fiepipiva, p-tpi/Livav, 145 seq., 167; dis- 
tinguished from fieXeiv, 146. 

/xtrdvoia, /xsTafiiXeta, 76. 

fj.6Tpr]Tr]g, 144. 

/.wixacOai, fioixtvOrjvai, 73 seq. 

popcprj, <yyr\p.a,ll seq. 



194 



LIGHTFOOT ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE N TEST. 



N. 



Nicene Creed, misunderstanding of, 10 

seq. 
Nicolas of Lyra, 177. 
vrjTTioi, naidia, 75. 
vofxog, 6 vofiog, 93. 

O. 

Official titles, rendering of, 139 seq. 

Origen on iiriovaiog, 163 seq., 168 seq.; 
on TTtpiovaiog, 180 seq. ; his method 
of interpretation, 168 ; general adop- 
tion of his interpretations, 169. 

68 6g 0)), 96 seq. 

o~ida, yivwmcuj, iniaTafxai, etc., 65 seq. 

uvofia (to), 98 seq. 

6-KTavtoQai, 126. 

opyh (»/), 98 seq. 

opog (to), 101 seq. 

-ovaiog, adjectives in, derived from -wv, 
165, 183 ; from ovaia, 165. 

o'vTtjg, 74. 

r. 

Papias, 42, 157. 

Paronomasia, 64 seq. 

Paul (St.), his use of the aorist, 82 seq. ; 
his vision, 86 seq. ; his teaching of 
redemption, 92 ; his conception of law, 
93 ; his thorn in the flesh, 125. 

Peculium, peculiaris, 183 seq. 

Peculiar, 183 seq. 

Perfect, confused with the aorist, 81 ; 
misrendered, 85 seq. 

Peshito. See Syriac Versions. 

Pfeiffer, 175. 

Phenice, Phoenix, Phoenicia, 138. 

Pleroma, the, 95 seq. 

Prepositions, in composition neglected, 
71 seq. ; variation of, disregarded, 72 ; 
mistranslations of, 107 seq. 

Present tense, mistranslated, 89 seq. 

Plumptre (Professor) on Revision, 35, 159. 

Proper names, how to be dealt with, 128 
seq. ; should conform in the O. T. and 
N. T., 131 seq. ; whether to be trans- 
lated or reproduced, 138 seq. 

TraTg , servant, 124. 

napdKXrjTog, 58 seq. 

TraptoiQ, 119 seq. 

7repiovcria(jfi6g, 181. 

TTtpiovaiog, 163, 168, 180 seq. 

7rspi7roir}mg, 181 seq. 

tvXoXov, to 7r\o~iov, 103 seq. 

7rvevfia, wind, spirit, 63 seq. 

7roX\oi, 01 tcoXXoi, etc., 92 seq. 



irpayfia (to), 99 seq. 
7rpo(3i(3dZsiv, 120. 
7rpo(pr]Tr]g (o),95. 
TrvXCovsg, 126. 
TTTspvyiov (to), 100. 
7rwpoi>v, TT&pwaig, 120. 
(paiveiv, (paiveaOai, 115 seq. 
ipaivofiai wv, (paivofxai tlvai, 11G. 
<p6ivo7ru>piv6g, 119. 
ipcov)], <p9oyycg, 75. 

R. 

Rabbi, Rabboni, 139. 

Rahab, spelling of, 134. 

Redemption, 92. 

Revision (the new) of the English Bible, 
historical parallel to, 31 seq. ; gloomy 
forebodings of, 31 ; exaggerated views 
of, 32 ; antagonism to, 32 ; disastrous 
results anticipated from, 33 ; ultimate 
acceptance of, 34 seq. ; need of, 34 seq. 
(passim) • prospects of, 151 seq. ; con- 
servative tendencies of rules affecting, 
160 seq. ; liberal conditions of, 161 ; 
favorable circumstances attending, 161 
seq. 

Roberts (Dr.), 171. 

Rome, bishops of, their use of the Latin 
Versions, 28 seq. 

Rufinus, 25. 



Salvation, how regarded in the New 

Testament, 89, 90. 
Saron. See Sharon. 
Second advent, 96 seq. 
Shamefaced, shamefast, 156. 
Sharon, the, 100 seq., 133. 
Shechinah, cKrjvf], 63 seq. 
Shibboleth, 133. 
Sower, parable of the, 56-7. 
Stanley (Dean), 101 seq. 
Stater, 143. 
Substantia, 174. 
Suicer, 168. 

Supersubstantialis, 169, 175, 176 seq., 177. 
Symmachus, 183. 
Synonyms, 65, 73 seq. 
Syrian Service-books, 173. 
Syrian Versions : 

Curetonian, rendering of irapaKXr}Tog, 
61 ; of iTTiovmog, 171, 173 (bis), 180. 

Jerusalem, rendering of tTriovmog, 172. 

Peshito, rendering of TcapdizXriTog, 61 ; 
of Kavava~iog and XavavaXog, 122 ; 
of tTTiovoiog, 172, 173, 179. 



IXDEX II. 



195 



Philoxenian (Harclean) rendering of 
(nriXadtg, 120 ; of iiriovaioc, 172 
seq. 
<ra/3/3ara, 127. 
oarov, 144. 

<T6J36[iEVOl, 126. 

GKTjvr], (tktjvovv, 63 seq. 
<T7r£KOv\arw0, 141. 
(nrXXoi, (nriXciSec, 120. 
GTepkwfict, 125 seq. 
auXaywytiV, 120. 
coj^ofitvoi (oi), 89 seq. 
H^O, 181 seq. 

T. 

Talent, 144. 

Tenses wrongly rendered, 80 seq. 

Tertullian, 174. 

Text, importance of a correct, 39 seq. 

Textual criticism, its tendencies, 36 seq. 

Teutonic Versions of the Lord's Prayer, 

179. 
Theodoret on iiriovoioc;, 170. 
Theophylact on tiriovaiog, 171 seq. 
Tholuck, 164, 168. 
Thomas, Acts of, 173. 
Trench (Archbishop) on the Authorized 

Version, 35, 52, 58, 74, 84, 119, 122, 124, 

131,146,148,159. 



Trent, Council of, 33, 179. 
Tyndale's Bible. See Bible. 
Oeiov (to), 126. 
OtXrjfxa, 98 seq. 
Opictfxfieveiv, 119. 



Urbane, 135. 

v\r), 123. 

V7r6, diet, 107 seq. 



U. 



V. 



Various readings, 41 seq. 

Victorinus on kiriovoioe, 174 ; on ntpiov- 

aioc, 181. 
Vulgate. See Jerome (St.). 

W. 

Wages of laborers, 142 seq. 

Way, the, 96 seq. 

Westcott (Dr.), 30 seq., 103. 

Wicliffe's Bible. See Bible. 

Witnesses, the three heavenly, 40 seq. 

Wrath, the, 98 seq. 

Wright (Professor), 172, 173 (bis). 



Zurich Latin Bible, 41, 179. 
£<£a, Orjpia, 73. 



THE END. 



ON THE 



AUTHORIZED VERSION 



NEW TESTAMENT 



IN CONNECTION 



WITH SOME RECENT PROPOSALS FOR ITS REVISION. 



BY 

RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D., 

AEOUBISHOr OF DUBLIN. 




NEW YORK: 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FBANKLIS SQUARE. 

18 7 3. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Introductory Remarks 5 

II. On the necessary Inferiority of Translations to their 

Originals 13 

III. On the English of the Authorized Version 31 

IV. On some Questions of Translation, and the Answers to 

THEM WHICH OUR TRANSLATORS GAVE Gl 

V. ON SOME UNNECESSARY DISTINCTIONS INTRODUCED 74 

VI. ON SOME REAL DISTINCTIONS EFFACED 90 

VII. On some better Renderings forsaken, or placed in the 

Margin 99 

VIII. On some Errors of Greek Grammar 115 

IX. On some questionable Renderings of Words 134 

X. On some incorrect Renderings of Words and Passages 147 

XL On some Charges unjustly brought against the Authorized 

Version 163 

XII. On the best Means of carrying out a Revision 175 

Appendix 187 

Indices 191 

I. Principal Texts considered 191 

II. Greek Words 193 

III. Other Words 194 



ON THE AUTHORIZED VERSION 



NEW TESTAMENT. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

It is clear that the question, Are we, or are we not, to have 
a new translation of Scripture ? or rather — since few would 
propose this who did not wish to lift anchor and loosen from 
its moorings the whole religious life of the English peoj:>le — 
Shall we, or shall we not, have a new revision of the Author- 
ized Version ? is one which is presenting itself more and more 
familiarly to the minds of men. This, indeed, is not by any 
means the first time that this question has been earnestly dis- 
cussed; but that which distinguishes the present agitation 
of the matter from preceding ones is, that on all former occa- 
sions the subject was only debated among scholars and di- 
vines, and awoke no interest in circles beyond them. The 
present is apparently the first occasion on which it has taken 
serious hold of the popular mind. But now indications of 
the interest which it is awakening reach us from every side. 
America is sending us the instalments — it must be owned 
not very encouraging ones — of a new version as fast as she 
can.* The wish for a revision has for a considerable time 

* With more haste, it is to he feared, than good speed. It is certainly not 
very encouraging, in respect of the equipment of those who undertake the 
work, when in the American Bible Union's version of the Epistle to the He- 
brews, published with an enormous apparatus of what present themselves as 



G TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

been working among Dissenters here; by the voice of one of 
these it has lately made itself heard in Parliament, and by 
the mouth of a Margaret Professor of Divinity in Convoca- 
tion. Our Reviews, and not those only which are specially 
dedicated to religious subjects, begin to deal with the ques- 
tion of revision. There are, or a little while since there were, 
frequent letters in the newspapers, either urging such a step, 
or remonstrating against it ; few of them, it is true, of much 
value or weight, yet, at the same time, showing how many 
minds are now occupied with the subject. 

It is manifestly a question of such immense importance, 
the issues depending on a right solution of it are so vast and 
solemn, that it may well claim a temperate and wise discus- 
sion. Nothing is gained, on the one hand, by vague and gen- 
eral charges of inaccuracy brought against our version ; they 
require to be supported by detailed proofs. Nothing, on the 
other hand, is gained by charges and insinuations against 
those who urge a revision, as though they desired to under- 
mine the foundations of the religious life and faith of En- 
gland ; were Socinians in disguise, or Papists — Socinians who 
hoped that, in another translation, the witness to the divinity 

learned notes, we fall, in the fifth page, upon this note [on i., 9, " Thou hast 
loved righteousness, and hated iniquity"] : " r/yaTnjvag . . . . ical epivrjaag. 
These participles are usually rendered by verbs." The translator congratu- 
lates himself that the errata are few. Running over a few of the notes I de- 
tected these : earetpdvoaag, p. 9 : opoiorera, p. 21 ; fiorjQiav, do. ; Trovepdg, 
pp. 14, 53 ; (poTHrBevreg, p. 55 ; Kara7r69tj<Tav, p. 64 ; oirovftdaopev (Heb. iv., 
11), p. 19 ; 7r\avo[xevoig, p. 21 ; morepiag, p. 27; dvriXox'iag, p. 32 ; aicovfxe- 
voi, p. 73 ; SiaQrjKsv, p. 46 ; pepapruperai, p. 58 ; epp.evev6p.evog, p. 30 ; eiiXo- 
yeice, p. 31 ; KaTairavae, p. 19 ; Kardaxopev, p. 15 — all these, except perhaps 
one or two, testifying for themselves that they are not mere printer's errata ; 
such I have omitted. The Ephesians yields a similar harvest : as x ai P& v i 
Xaipov, p. 4 ; enXripuQepev, ib. ; evayyaXi^oj, p. 5 ; ivepyia, p. 6 ; p-varepiov, p. 
3 ; Epiphanias, p. 4 ; avve^wrroieae, p. 7 ; tZoiroiece, bis, p. 8 : TvpeToip.a<jev, p. 
9 ; 7ropouj, p. 19 ; ev'epyt]ae, p. 6. 

[In justice to the Bible Union, I beg leave to add that the work referred to 
belongs to its early publications, and that this society should be judged rather 
by the New Testament which has since been completed, and by the scholarly 
works of Dr. Conant on Job, Genesis, Psalms, and Proverbs, prepared for, and 
published by the Bible Union.— P. S.] 



INTR OB TIC TOIL Y REMARKS. 7 

of the Son and of the Spirit might prove less clear than in 
the present — Papists who desired that the authority of the 
English Scripture, the only Scripture accessible to the great 
body of the people, might be so shaken and rendered so 
doubtful, that men would be driven to their Church, and to 
its authority, as the only authority that remained. As little 
is the matter profited, or in any way brought nearer to a set- 
tlement, by sentimental appeals to the fact that this, which 
it is now proposed to alter, has been the Scripture of our 
childhood, in which we and so many generations before us 
first received the tidings of everlasting life. All this, well 
as it may deserve to be considered, yet, as argument at all 
deciding the question, will sooner or later have to be cleared 
away ; and the facts of the case, apart from cries, and insinu- 
ations, and suggestions of evil motives, and appeals to the 
religious passions and prejudices of the day — apart, too, from 
feelings which in themselves demand the highest respect, will 
have to be dealt with in that spirit of seriousness and ear- 
nestness which a question affecting so profoundly the whole 
moral and spiritual life of the English people, not to speak 
of nations which are yet unborn, abundantly deserves. 

It is no main and leading purpose in the pages which follow 
either to advocate a revision or to dissuade one ; but rather 
I have proposed to myself to consider the actual worth of our 
present translation ; its strength, and also any weaknesses 
which may affect that strength ; its beauty, and also the 
blemishes which impair that beauty in part ; the grounds on 
which a new revision of it may be demanded ; the inconven- 
iences, difficulties, the dangers it may be, which would at- 
tend such a revision; some of the rules and principles accord- 
ing to which it would need, if undertaken at all, to be carried 
out ; and thus, so far as this lies in my power, to assist oth- 
ers, who may not have been able to give special attention to 
this subject, to form a decision for themselves. I will not, in 
so doing, pretend that my own mind is entirely in equilibri- 
um on the subject. On the whole, I am persuaded that a re- 



8 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

vision ought to come; I am convinced that it will come. 
Not, however, let us trust, as yet ; for we are not as yet in 
any respect prepared for it ; the Greek (I mean that special 
Hellenistic Greek here required), this, and the English no 
less, which would be needful to bring this work to a success- 
ful end, might, it is to be feared, be wanting alike. There is 
much of crude and immature in nearly all the contributions 
which have been, and for some time yet will be made, to this 
object. Nor, certainly, do I underrate the other difficulties 
which would beset such an enterprise ; they look, some of 
them, the more serious to me the more I contemplate them. 
Still, believing that this mountain of difficulty will have to be 
surmounted, I can only trust and confidently hope that it, 
like so many other mountains, will not, on nearer approach, 
prove so formidable as at a distance it appears. Only let the 
Church, when the due time shall arrive, address herself to 
this work with earnest prayer for the divine guidance, her 
conscience bearing her witness that in no sj}irit of idle inno- 
vation, that only out of dear love to her Lord and his truth, 
and out of an allegiance to that truth which overbears every 
other consideration, with an earnest longing to present his 
Word, whereof she is the guardian, in all its sincerity, to her 
children, she has undertaken this hard and most perilous 
task, and in some way or other every difficulty will be over- 
come. Whatever pains and anxieties the work may cost her, 
she will feel herself abundantly rewarded if only she is able 
to offer God's Word to her children, not indeed free from all 
marks of human infirmity clinging to its outward form — for 
we shall have God's treasure in earthen vessels still — but 
with some of these blemishes which she now knows of re- 
moved, and altogether approaching nearer to that which she 
desires to see it, namely, a work without spot, or wrinkle, or 
any such thing — a perfect copy of an archetype that is perfect. 
In the mean time, while the matter is still in suspense 
and debate, while it occupies, as it needs must, the anxious 
thoughts of many, it can not misbecome those who have been 



INTR OB UCTOR T REMARKS. 9 

specially led by their duties or their inclinations to a more 
close comparison of the English Version with the original 
Greek, to offer whatever they have to offer, be that little or 
much, for the helping of others toward a just and dispassion- 
ate judgment, and one founded upon evidence, in regard to 
the question at issue. And if they consider that a revision 
ought to come, or, whether desirable or not, that it will come, 
they must wish to throw in any contribution which they 
have to make toward the better accomplishing of this ob- 
ject. Assuming that they have any right to mingle in the 
controversy at all, they may reasonably hope that, even if 
much which they bring has long ago been brought forward 
by others, or must be set aside from one cause or another, 
yet that something will remain, and will survive that rigor- 
ous proof to which every suggestion of change should be 
submitted. And in a matter of such high concernment as 
this the least is much. To have cast in even a mite into 
this treasury of the Lord, to have brought one smallest stone 
which it is permitted to build into the walls of his house, to 
have detected one smallest blemish that would not otherwise 
have been removed, to have made in any way whatever a sin- 
gle suggestion of lasting value toward the end here in view, 
is something for which to be forever thankful. It is in that 
intention, with this hope, that I have ventured to publish 
these pages. 

The work, indeed, which I thus undertake, can not be re- 
garded as a welcome one. There is often a sense of some- 
thing ungenerous, if not actually unjust, in passing over large 
portions of our Version, where all is clear, correct, lucid, hap- 
py, awakening continual admiration by the rhythmic beauty 
of the periods, the instinctive art with which the style rises 
and falls with its subject, the skillful surmounting of difficul- 
ties the most real, the diligence and success with which al- 
most all which was best in preceding translations has been 
in it retained and embodied ; the constant solemnity and se- 
riousness which, by some nameless skill, is made to rest upon 



1 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

all ; in passing over all this and much more with a few gen- 
eral words of recognition, and then stopping short and urging 
some single blemish or inconsistency, and dwelling upon and 
seeming to make much of this, which often in itself is so lit- 
tle ; for the flaws pointed out are frequently so small and so 
slight that it might almost seem as if the objector had arm- 
ed his eye with a microscope for the purpose of detecting 
that which otherwise would have escaped notice, and which, 
even if it were faulty, might well have been suffered to pass 
by, unchallenged and lost sight of, in the general beauty of 
the whole. The work of Momus is never, or at least never 
ought to be, other than an ungracious one. Still less do we 
welcome the office of fault-finder when that whose occasional 
petty flaws we are pointing out has claims of special grati- 
tude, and reverence, and affection from us. It seems at once 
an unthankfulness and almost an impiety to dwell on errors 
in that to which we for ourselves owe so much; to which 
the whole religious life of our native land owes so much ; 
which has been the nurse and fosterer of our national piety 
for hundreds of years ; which, associated with so much that 
is sad and joyful, sweet and solemn, in the heart of every 
one, appeals as much to our affections as to our reason. 

But, admitting all this, we may still reconcile ourselves to 
this task by such considerations as the following ; and, first, 
that a passing by of the very much which is excellent, with 
a dwelling on the very little which is otherwise, lies in the 
necessity of the task undertaken. What is good, what is per- 
fect, may have, and ought to have, its goodness freely and 
thankfully acknowledged ; but it offers comparatively little 
matter for observation. It is easy to exhaust the language 
of admiration, even when that admiration is intelligently and 
thoughtfully rendered. We are not tempted to pause till we 
meet with something which challenges dissent, nor can we 
avoid being mainly occupied with this. 

And then, secondly, if it be urged that many of the objec- 
tions made arc small and trivial, it can only be replied that 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



11 



nothing is really small or trivial which has to do with the 
Word of God, which helps or hinders the exactest setting 
forth of that Word. That Word lends an importance and a 
dignity to every thing connected with it. The more deeply 
we are persuaded of the inspiration of Holy Scripture, and 
of the extent of this inspiration, the more intolerant we shall 
be of any lets, and hinderances to the arriving at a perfect 
understanding of that which the mouth of God has spoken. 
In setting forth his Word in another language from that in 
which it was first uttered, we may justly desire such an ap- 
proximation to perfection as the instrument of language — to 
which so much of imperfection cleaves — will allow ; and this 
not merely in greatest things, but in smallest. 

Nor yet need the occasional shortcomings of our transla- 
tors be noted in any spirit of disrespect to them, or dispar- 
agement of their work. Some of the errors into which they 
fell were inevitable, and belonged in no proper sense to them 
more than to the whole age in which they lived, as, for in- 
stance, in the matter of the Greek article. Unless we were 
to demand a miracle, and that their scholarship should have 
been altogether on a different level from that of their age, 
this could not have been otherwise. We may reasonably re- 
quire of such a company of men, undertaking so great and 
■solemn a work, that their knowledge should approve itself 
on a level with the very best which their age could supply ; 
even as it does ; but more than this it would be unfair and 
absurd to demand. If other of their mistakes might have 
been avoided, as is plain from the fact that predecessors or 
contemporaries did avoid them, and yet were not avoided 
by them, this only shows that the marks of human weakness 
and infirmity, which cleave to every work of men, cleave 
also to theirs. Nor will I refrain from adding, to preoccupy 
that charge of presumption, which is so ready at hand to cast 
in the face of any one who objects to any part of their work, 
that he who ventures to do this does not in this presumptu- 
ously affirm himself a better scholar than they were. He 
for the most part only draws on the accumulated stores of 

R 



1 2 TRENCH ON A UTIL VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

the knowledge of Greek, which have been laboriously got to- 
gether in the two hundred and fifty years that have elapsed 
since their work was done ; he only claims to be an inheritor 
in some sort of the cares specially devoted to the elucidation 
of the meaning of Holy Scripture during this period. It 
would be little to the honor of those ages if they had made 
no advances in this knowledge ; it would be little to the 
honor of our own if we did not profit by their acquisitions. 
What our translators said on this point concerning those who 
went before them, we, or those who come after us, may in 
turn say of them ; and I can not do better than quote here 
the very words in which they disclaimed for their work that 
it implied any disparagement of those upon whose labors they 
rather were entering with praise to God, and with thankful 
gratitude to them : " We are so far off from condemning any 
of their labors that travailed before us in this kind, . . . that 
we acknowledge them to have been raised up of God for the 
building and furnishing of his Church, and that they deserve 
to be had of us and of posterity in everlasting remembrance. 
. . . Blessed be they, and most honored be their name, that 
break the ice, and give the onset upon that which helpeth 

forward to the saving of souls Yet for all that, as 

nothing is begun and perfected at the same time, and the 
later thoughts are thought to be the wiser; so if we, build- 
ing upon their foundation that went before us, and being 
holpen by their labors, do endeavor to make that better which 
they left so good, no man, we are sure, hath cause to mislike 
us ; they, we persuade ourselves, if they were alive, would 
thank us. . . . . Of one and the same book of Aristotle's 
Ethics there are extant not so few as six or seven several 
translations. Now, if this cost may be bestowed upon the 
gourd, which afibrdeth us a little shade, and which to-day 
flourisheth, but to-morrow is cut down, what may we bestow 
— nay, what ought we not to bestow upon the Vine, the fruit 
whereof maketh glad the conscience of man, and the stem 
whereof abideth forever ? And this is the Word of God, 
which we translate." 



ON THE INFERIORITY OF TRANSLATIONS, ETC. 13 



CHAPTER II. 

OX THE NECESSARY INFERIORITY OF TRANSLATIONS TO 
THEIR ORIGINALS. 

It is good and necessary that all who seek accurately to 
measure in a translation what it yields and what it fails in 
yielding, should present clearly and distinctly to their own 
minds the fact that in all translations there are losses un- 
avoidable, as well as losses avoidable ; that if, in emptying 
the precious wine from one vessel to another, a careless hand 
may cause sometimes that to be spilt which might have been 
preserved,, there is a further spilth which not the utmost care 
and skill could have prevented altogether. Avoidable losses, 
as has just been implied, are those which more pains, more 
watchfulness, a more complete mastery of the language out 
of which the translation is made, a more complete mastery 
of that into which it is made, enabling to call forth all its la- 
tent capacities, and, I will add, more genius, would have hin- 
dered from occurring; and it is for these alone that any trans- 
lators can be held responsible. Unavoidable are those in- 
herent in the nature of the task ; in the relations of one lan- 
guage to another; in the lack of accurate correlations and cor- 
respondencies between them; in the very different schemes 
on which they are constructed ; in what one might venture 
to call the innate stubbornness of the v\rj out of which a new 
cosmos, the rival of that already existing, has to be evoked ; 
the inferiority, if not throughout, yet in special points, of the 
translators' language — losses, therefore, which no labor, no 
skill, no genius, no mastery of one language or the other, no 
employment of all helps within reach, would have prevented. 
The translators may have done their part to the full ; may 
have turned^ and not overturned, their original (Jerome com- 



1 4 TRENCH ON A UTH VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

plains that in his time many versiones deserved to be called 
eversiones rather) ; they may have given the lie to the Ital- 
ian proverb, "Traduttori traditori" or "Translators traitors" 
— men, that is, who do not render, but surrender, their au- 
thor's meaning — their shortcomings may in weight and num- 
ber be as few as it is possible to conceive, nay, let them be 
none at all, and yet the losses of which I speak will not have 
been therefore excluded. 

It is not possible always to draw the exact line between 
these losses and the others. Thus a passage may have baf- 
fled the skill of one and of another adequately to give it back 
in a second tongue ; it may seem as though the thing were 
not to be done ; when another may arise, who, a greater mas- 
ter of language, or in a more genial hour, may untie or cut 
the knot which has baffled the skill of all who went before 
him, may take the impregnable fortress before which so many 
others have sat down in vain. It is to such translators, most 
few in number, that the magnificent encomium which Jerome 
gives to Hilary and his renderings from the Greek belongs 
— " quasi captivos sensus in suam linguam victoris jure trans- 
posuit" (Ep. 33). We can seldom, therefore, absolutely af- 
firm of any particular passage that its difficulties can never 
be completely overcome, though of many that they have nev- 
er yet been overcome. Yet this must not prevent us from 
recognizing a large number of the shortcomings which at- 
tend all translation as ranging under this category — to be 
regretted, therefore, but not to be imputed ; seeing that, if 
any fault is to be found, it must be found with language it- 
self, which, marvelous gift of God as it is, yet working through 
men's limited faculties and powers, proves often so imperfect 
an implement ; which, capable of so much, is yet not capa- 
ble of all. 

It needs hardly be observed that, in thus speaking of the 
mountains which will not become plains, I assume through- 
out that the work to be rendered has mountains ; that it is 
grand in features, original in design ; that the genius of its 



ON THE INFERIORITY OF TRANSLATIONS, ETC. 15 

author travels more or less by unwonted paths, moves in an 
unwonted sphere, advances to the limits of human thought, 
and thus stretches to the utmost the capabilities of human 
speech. No one will deny that where thought, feeling, pas- 
sion, imagination are absent, or are only slightly present, it 
will be quite possible to render from one language to anoth- 
er with little or no loss in the transfer ; but the Agamemnon, 
the Divina Commeclia, or the Faust — what translator (unless 
he has entered upon his task with that utter unfitness for it 
which prevents him even from comprehending the greatness 
and the difficulties of it) has not been staggered and amazed 
at the vastness, the variety, the infinite perplexity of the 
problems which are in these offered for his solution — prob- 
lems of which some will have to be evaded rather than solved, 
some to be solved imperfectly, and some not to be solved at 
all? 

And if this be so with works of man's art and device, how 
much more certainty and how much more signally must it be 
the case where the book that is to be rendered is sole and 
unparalleled of its kind, reaching to far higher heights and 
far deeper depths than any other ; having words of God, and 
not of man, for its substance ; where the garments of man's 
speech must be narrower than the body of God's truth, which 
yet by one means or another has to be clothed with it ; while 
the importance of doing the best possible with the far-reach- 
ing issues which will follow on success or failure falls in each 
other case into absolute insignificance as compared with its 
importance here. 

This imperfection, it may be replied, is an imperfection 
cleaving to all human languages alike ; the original language 
must suffer from it no less than that into which the version 
is to be made. It can not be doubted that this, to a certain 
point, is true. No doubt, in whatever human tongue God 
may please to make his will to be known, his thoughts will 
transcend our speech. Wherever the sons of heaven are mar- 
ried to the daughters of earth — divine thoughts to human 



1 6 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

words — the inequality of the union, the fact that, whatever 
richest blessings it may bring with it, it is still a marriage 
of disparagement, will make itself plainly to appear. We 
shall have his treasure, if I may repeat the image, in earthen 
vessels still. At the same time, one vessel may be of far 
finer, another of far coarser earth. Thus, where a language 
for long centuries has been the organ and vehicle of divine 
truth, there will be in it words which will have grown and 
expanded into some meetness for the task to which they have 
been put. Long set apart for sacred uses, for the designa- 
tion of holy persons or things, there will float a certain sanc- 
tity round them. Life and death, good and evil, sin and re- 
pentance, heaven and hell, with all the mysteries of each, will 
have found utterances not wholly inadequate to them. 

But how different will it be in a language now for the first 
time brought'into the service of divine truth. Here all will 
be by comparison slight and superficial, common and pro- 
fane. For the most solemn, the most sacred, the augustest 
mysteries of our redemption, words will have to be employed 
which have little, if any thing, of solemn, or sacred, or august 
about them — words which have sometimes almost to be pick- 
ed out of the mire,* in the hope that they might be cleansed, 
may little by little be filled with a higher sense, a holier 

* How often the missionary translator must make the experience which 
the Jesuits made in Japan long ago. One who has written the wonderful 
histoiy of their labors there speaks thus : " Though the language be so co- 
pious, still it wants several proper words for expressing the mysteries of our 
religion, which makes the preachers of the Gospel very uneasy ; for to use a 
word with an equivocal sense either turns the discourse into ridicule, or at 
least makes it unintelligible. As, for example, the wordjuinogi, a cross, sig- 
nifies also a letter of the alphabet and the number ten ; and therefore a preach- 
er who makes use of this word to denote the cross of Christ our Lord, leaves 
his auditory at a loss for his meaning. In like manner, if he would speak of 
a soul, they'll conclude he means the devil, the same word and character be- 
ing common to both. To avoid, then, all equivocations, and give the infidels 
a more lively idea and higher veneration for our sacred mysteries, the fathers 
of the society thought fit to make use of the Portuguese words ; and so they 
call God Dios, the soul alma, the cross cruz, the devil demonio." — History of 
the Church of Japan, written originally in French by Monsieur V Abbe' de T. 
London, 1705 ; vol. i., p. 7; comp. p. 73. 



ON THE INFERIORITY OF TRANSLATIONS, ETC. 17 

meaning, than any which before their adoption into this sa- 
cred service they knew. And so no doubt they will at last ; 
heathen " Ostara" will become Christian " Easter ;" " suona," 
and"sunta," and "sculd," words touching once but the out- 
er circumference of life in the old German heathendom, will 
severally, as " Siihne," and " Siinde," and " Schuld," touch the 
centre and core of the Christian life of men. " Hriuwa," 
which meant so little, will become " Reue," which means so 
much ; " galauba," " Glaube ;" not to speak of innumerable 
other words, to which the same or a yet more wonderful 
transfiguration will arrive. 

We have examples new and old of the extreme perplexity, 
of which this which I have just mentioned will continually 
be the cause. Thus the missionary translator, if he be at all 
aware of the awful implement which he is wielding, of the 
tremendous crisis in a people's spiritual life which has arrived 
when their language is first made the vehicle of revealed 
truths, will often tremble at the work he has in hand — trem- 
ble lest he should be permanently lowering or confusing the 
whole religious life of a people by choosing a meaner and let- 
ting go a nobler word for the setting forth of some leading 
truth of redemption ; and yet the choice how difficult, the 
nobler itself falling how infinitely below his desires, and be- 
low the truth of which he would make it the bearer. Even 
those who are wholly ignorant of Chinese can yet perceive 
how vast the spiritual interests which are at stake in China ; 
how much will be won or how much lost for the whole spir- 
itual life of that people, it may be for ages to come, accord- 
ing as the right or the wrong word is selected by the trans- 
lators of the Scriptures into Chinese for expressing the true 
and the living God.* As many of us as are ignorant of the 
language can be no judges in the controversy which on this 
matter is being carried on ; but we can all feel how vital the 
question, how enormous the interests which are at stake ; and 
not less, having heard the allegations on the one side and on 

* See the Rev. S. C. Malan's Who is God in China, Shin or Shang-te ? 



1 8 TRENCH ON A UTS. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

the other, that there is only an alternative of difficulties 
here. 

And even where the issues are not so vast and awful as in 
this case, how much may turn on having, or not having, the 
appropriate word. Two, or it may be more, will present 
themselves, each inadequate, yet each with its own advan- 
tages, so that it shall be exceedingly difficult for the most 
skillful master of language to determine which ought to be 
preferred. Thus it was not indifferent whether Aoyog in the 
prologue of St. John's Gospel, and in the other passages which 
would naturally be ruled by that passage, should be render- 
ed in ecclesiastical Latin " sermo" or " verbum." The fact 
that " verbum" has from the beginning been the predominant 
rendering, and that " verbum" is a neuter impersonal, pos- 
sessing no such mysterious duplicity of meaning as Aoyoc, 
which is at once " the Word" and " the Reason," has, I do not 
hesitate to affirm, modified the whole development of Latin 
theology in respect of the personal "Word of God." I do 
not, indeed, believe that the advantages which in " verbum" 
are foregone, would have been secured by the choosing of 
"sermo" rather; any gains from this would have been ac- 
companied by more than countervailing losses. I can not, 
therefore, doubt that the Latin Church did wisely and well 
in preferring " verbum" to " sermo ;" indeed, it ultimately 
quite disallowed the latter ; but still the doubts and hesita- 
tion which existed for some time upon this point* illustrate 
well the difficulty of which I am speaking. 

Or take another question, not altogether unlike this. Did 
the old " poenitentia," or the " resipiscentia" which some of 
the Reformers sought to introduce in its room, best represent 
peravoia ? should fxeravoeTrE be rendered," poenitentiam agite" 
or " resipiscite ?"f The Roman Catholics found great fault 
with Beza, that, instead of the " poenitentia," hallowed by 

* See Petavius, De Trin., vi., 1, 4. 

f See Fred. Spanheim's Dub. Evangelica, pars 3 a , dub. vii. ; Campbell On 
the Four Gospels, vol. i. , p. 292 sqq. 



ON THE INFERIORITY OF TRANSLATIONS, ETC. 19 

long ecclesiastical usage, and having acquired a certain pre- 
scriptive right by its long employment in the Vulgate, he, in 
his translation of Scripture, substituted "resipiscentia." Now 
Beza, and those who stood with him in this controversy, were 
assuredly right in replying that, while a serious displeasure 
on the sinner's part at his past life is an important element in 
all true \itravoia or repentance, still " pcenitentia" is at fault, 
in that it brings out nothing but this, leaves the changed 
mind for the time to come, which is the central idea of the 
original word,* altogether unexpressed and untouched; that, 
moreover, " resipiscentia" was no such novelty, Lactantius 
having already shown the way in a rendering with which now 
so much fault was found. Taking his ground strictly on ety- 
mology, Beza was perfectly justified ; but it was also true, 
which he did not take account of, that fieravota. even before 
it had been assumed into scriptural usage,f and much more 
after, had acquired a superadded sense of regret for the past, 
or "hadiwist" (had-I-wist), as our ancestors called it; which, 
if " pcenitentia" seemed to embody too exclusively, his "re- 
sipiscentia," making at least as serious an omission, hardly 
embodied at all. J On the whole, I can not but think that it 
would have been better to leave " pcenitentia" undisturbed, 
while yet how much on either side there was here to be 
urged. 

This, however, only by the way. The painful perplexity 
alluded to above, and felt so deeply by many a missionary 
translator at the present day, did not touch ours. Thanks 
to Gregory the Great, to the monk Augustine, to Alfred, to 
Wicliffe, to Tyndale, and so many more, English was a lan- 

* Tertullian had noted this long before (Adv. Marc, ii., 24) : "In Graeco 
sermone pcenitentise nomen non ex delicti confessione, sed ex anirai demuta- 
tione compositum est." 

t Plutarch (Pericles, c. 10) : ~M.eva.voia ctivri tovq 'AOrjvalovg icai ttuQoq 
£<7X £ tov ~Ki/nu>vog. 

t A very recent translator of the New Testament in America seeks to make 
good for the English what Beza would have made good for the Latin ; and 
for "Eepent" every where substitutes "Change your minds," and for "re- 
pentance," " change of mind !" 



20 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

guage in which the wonderful works of God had been pro- 
claimed so long, the language and the faith had so grown to- 
gether, that those who in the latter days undertook this task 
of translating the Scriptures into English had not to com- 
plain of any strangeness in the one to the truths of the other, 
or of any profane, much less degrading, associations clinging 
to the words which they were obliged to use. Still the 
transcendent character of the Book to be rendered, being the 
Book of Him whose thoughts are not as our thoughts, must 
not be left out of sight when we seek to take a measure of 
what we may call the insuperable difficulties which attended 
the work they undertook. 

But, setting aside this the unique character of the. Bible, 
there are reasons enough why the translation of any con- 
siderable book must always in many points halt behind the 
original. These reasons are plain. In every language of 
highly-cultivated men — probably, indeed, more than all in 
those two which God has willed shall contain the authentic 
records of his revelation of himself to mankind — there will be 
found subtleties, felicities, audacities, and other excellencies 
of speech, which are not capable of reproduction in any oth- 
er. Each will have idioms in the strictest sense of the word 
— turns of speech, that is, proper and peculiar to itself; and 
though other languages may have compensations more or 
fewer, which in like manner are theirs alone, still these, not 
being found there where exactly the translator wants them, 
are not likely to assist him much, or to redress the balance 
in his favor again. 

One people will seize differences and distinctions, and em- 
body them in words, which another has not cared, or, it may 
be, has not had the skill or the good fortune to make its own. 
Thus the Greek will often have two words where we have 
but one. Hannibal is " one-eyed" for us, and a Cyclops or 
Arimaspian is " one-eyed ;" but in the Greek he who is con- 
ceived to have by nature but a single eye is fxov6(pda\fiog ; he 
who has only one, because the other has been lost, is eref>6(j)- 



OX THE INFERIORITY OF TRANSLATIONS, ETC. 2 1 

OaXfiog. It is an indication of the Greek in its decline, when 
it ceased any longer to trouble itself with these fine but most 
real distinctions, that the Hellenistic has not cared to retain 
this distinction (see Matt, xviii., 9 ; Mark ix., 47). The more 
subtle-thoughted a people are, the finer and more numerous 
the differences will be which they will thus have apprehend- 
ed, and to which they will have given permanence in words. 
For — to remain on our own immediate ground of the Xew 
Testament — what, we may ask, can an English translator do 
to express the distinction, oftentimes very significant, be- 
tween civi'ip and avOpio-n-og? — the honor which lies often in the 
first (Acts xiii.,16 ; xvii., 22), the slight which is intended to 
be conveyed in the second (Matt, xxvi., 72) ? At this point 
the Latin, with " vir" and " homo," is a match for the Greek, 
though we are not. In like manner, the differences, almost 
always instructive, occasionally important, between iep6i< and 
vaog, fiiog and C^h a^Aoe and erepog, viog and Katvog^ aXrjdijg and 
aXr)Qivog, (piXeio and aya7raw, (joatcio and 7roifiaivio, mostly disap- 
pear, and, as it seems to me, there is no help but that they 
must disappear, in any English translation. Such facts re- 
mind us that language, divine gift to man as it is, yet work- 
ing itself out through human faculties and powers, has cleav- 
ing to it a thousand marks of weakness, and infirmity, and 
limitation. 

To take an example of this, the obliteration of distinctions, 
which is quite unavoidable, or which could only have been 
avoided at the cost of greater losses in some other direction, 
and to deal with it somewhat more in detail — the distinction 
between acrjg, the invisible underworld, the receptacle of all 
departed, and yiewa, the place of torment, quite disappears 
in our Version. They are both translated " hell," acrjg being 
so rendered ten times, and yiewa twelve ; the only attempt 
to give acrjg a word of its own being at 1 Cor. xv., 55, where it 
is translated " grave." The confusion of which this is the oc- 
casion is serious ; though how it could have been avoided, or 
how it would be possible now to get rid of it, I do not in the 



2 2 TRENCH ON A UTIT. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

least perceive. It would not be possible to render ^c, wher- 
ever it occurs, by " grave," thus leaving " hell" as the ren- 
dering of yhwa only; for see Matt, xi., 23; xvi.,18, the two 
first places of its occurrence, where this plainly would not 
suit. On the other hand, the popular sense links the name 
of " hell" so closely with the place of torment, that it would 
not answer to keep " hell" for ^c, and to look out for some 
other rendering of yievva, to say nothing of the difficulty or 
impossibility of finding one ; for certainly " gehenna," which 
I have seen proposed, would not do. The French have, in- 
deed, adopted the word, though it is only " gene" to them ; 
and Milton has once used it in poetry ; but it can not, in any 
sense, be said to be an English word. It is much to be re- 
gretted that " hades" has never been thoroughly naturalized 
among us. The language wants the word, and in it the true 
solution of the difficulty might have been found.* 

Then, too, it will continually happen that one language will 
have words so elastic, so many-sided, so capable of being em- 
ployed now in a good sense and now in a bad, in irony or 
in earnest, that other tongues can produce no equivalents for 
these. It is quite possible that they also, though transcend- 
ed in some points, may themselves transcend in others; yet 
this will not help the translator. " In all languages what- 
ever," to use Bentley's words, " a word of a moral or politic- 
al signification, containing several complex ideas arbitrarily 
joined together, has seldom any correspondent word in any 
other language which extends to all these ideas."f But the 
remark is capable of far wider application, and we recognize 
here the source of one necessary imperfection in all transla- 
tion. Looking at the work from an ideal point of view, it 
would be manifestly desirable to render constantly one word 

* On the " debasing limitation" which Christ's magnificent prerogative, ical 
tX<o rag k\hq tov Qavarov icai rov adov (Rev. i., 18), endures, when it is ren- 
dered, "and have the keys of death and of hell ," see some good observa- 
tions in Howe's grand sermon, " The Redeemer's dominion over the invisible 
world."— Works, London, 1832, pp. 309, 310. 

f On Freethinking, p. xxx. 



ON THE INFERIORITY OF TRANSLATIONS, ETC. 23 

iii one language by one and the same in another ; having 
given to each its equivalent, to adhere to this throughout. 
But the rule, however theoretically good, is discovered, when 
the application of it is attempted, to be one which it is whol- 
ly impossible to carry out. If this has ever been proposed 
as an inflexible law, it must have been on the assumption 
that words in one language cover exactly the same spaces 
of meaning which other words do in another; that they have 
exactly the same many-sidedness, the same elasticity, the 
same power of being applied for good or for evil, for honor 
or for shame. But nothing is farther from the case. Words 
are inclosures from the great outfield of meanings ; but differ- 
ent languages have inclosed on different schemes, as chance, 
or design, or the deeper instincts unconsciously at work in 
men's minds have determined ; and words in different lan- 
guages which are precisely co-extensive and commensurate 
with one another, are much rarer than we incuriously assume. 
It is easy to illustrate this, the superior elasticity of a word 
in one language to that of one which is in part its equivalent 
in another. Thus we have no word in English which at once 
means heavenly messengers and earthly, with only the con- 
text to determine which of the two is intended. There was 
no choice, therefore, but to render ayyeXot by " messengers" 
at Luke vii., 24; ix., 52; Jam. ii., 25, however it might be 
translated " angels" in each other passage of the New Testa- 
ment where it occurs. Again, no word in English has the 
power which /zdyoc has in Greek, of being used at will in an 
honorable sense or a dishonorable. There was no help, there- 
fore, but to render pay oi by " wise men,"* or some such hon- 
orable designation, Matt, ii., 1, and /myoc by " sorcerer," Acts 
xiii., 6. Thus, again, it would have been difficult to repre- 
sent UapaKXrj-os, applied now to the third Person of the Holy 

* Milton, indeed, speaks of these wise men as the " star-led wizards," and 
" wizard" is the word which Sir John Cheke employs in his translation of St. 
Matthew ; but the word is scarcely honorable enough for the /xdyoi of this 
place, nor opprobrious enough for the n<xyog of the Acts. 



24 TRENCH ON A UTR. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

Trinity (John xiv., 16, 26), and now to the second (1 John i., 
21), by any single word. "Paraclete" would alone have been 
possible ; and such uniformity of rendering, if indeed it could 
be called rendering at all, would have been dearly purchased 
by the loss of " Comforter" and "Advocate" — both of them 
Latin words, it is true, but much nearer to the heart and un- 
derstanding of Englishmen than the Greek " Paraclete" could 
ever have become.* To have rendered cku/xoVta " devils," and 
not "gods," at Acts xvii., 18, because it has been elsewhere 
so rendered, as Tyndale and Cranmer have done, would have 
been a confusing mistake. In the mouth of heathen men, 
such as the Athenians who are speaking here, the word meant 
something quite different from what it meant elsewhere in 
the mouth of Jews, and demands to be differently rendered. 
So, too, it would have been unadvisable to render tcvpie, as 
the compilation of one person by another, always " Sir," or 
always " Lord." The word has a wider range than either of 
these two ; it is only the two together which cover an equal 
extent. "Sir" in many cases would not be respectful enough; 
" Lord" in some w T ould be too respectful (John xx., 15). Our 
translators have prudently employed both, and in most cases 
have shown a fine tact in their selection of one or the other. 
One's only doubt is whether, in the conversation of our Lord 
with the Samaritan woman (John iv.), they should not have 
changed the "Sir," which is perfectly in its place at ver. 11, 
where she is barely respectful to her unknown interrogator, 
into " Lord" at ver. 15, or, if not there, yet certainly at ver. 
19. The Rheims version beginning, as we do, with " Sir," al- 
ready has exchanged this for " Lord" at ver. 15, and thus del- 
icately indicates the growing reverence of the woman for the 
mysterious stranger whom she has met beside Jacob's well. 

* We should not forget, in measuring the fitness of " Comforter," that the 
fundamental idea of " Comforter, " according to its etymology and its early 
use, is that of " Strengthened " and not "Consoler," even as the TrapuicXrjTog 
is one who, being summoned to the side of the accused or imperiled man (ad- 
vocatus), stands by to aid and encourage. See the instructive note in Arch- 
deacon Hare's Mission of the Comforter, p. 521-527. 



Oy THE INFERIORITY OF TRANSLATIONS, ETC. £5 

Or, again, a language will have words resting on and em- 
bodying some picturesque image, which, so far as they do 
this, have no counterparts elsewhere. If we met the Spanish 
" pavonear" or the French " pavaner," we might render these 
by the English "to strut;" there would, indeed, be hardly any 
choice but to do so ; but where is the peacock (pavon) here ? 
the strutting as the peacock does, which underlies and looks 
through the word which we thus inadequately render ? We 
might render " fourmiller" " to swarm ;" we could scarcely 
do otherwise ; but where is the swarming as the ants do, the 
" formiculare," if one might so say, of the French original ? 
So, too, our translators may say, "JBe clothed with humility" 
(1 Pet. V., 5) ; and fitly ; for no word in English would ex- 
press all which eytconfiuxracrde does in Greek, namely, "Fasten 
humility upon you as a garment which is tied with knots — 
not, therefore, to be lightly removed from you again." Still 
there is loss here. 

Once more, one language will have words which utter in 
their own brief compass what it takes two or three, or, it may 
be, half a dozen words in another language to utter. The 
New Testament furnishes many such, as the EV7replaTa-og of 
Heb. xii., 1, not expressible, or, at least, not expressed by us 
in less than six words, "which doth so easily beset us;" 
as the uXkoTpioEKiaKOTTOQ of 1 Pet. i\\, 15, which costs us only 
one word less — " busy-body in other men's matters" — to ren- 
der. I do not venture to affirm that in these particular cases 
such long circumlocutions were absolutely inevitable. One 
of the old Latin versions, which renders evTrepiara-oQ afiaprla, 
" agile peccatum," has at any rate, so far as the Latin goes, 
avoided this in the first instance; and then there is "med- 
dler" (though I am not prepared to recommend it), which 
would have done the same in the second. Still, even if these 
instances were in one way or another got rid of from our 
Version, shown to be needless circumlocutions, it would not 
the less remain certain that any language, rich in expressive 
words, will frequently offer those which will need two, three, 



26 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

or, it may be, more, adequately to express in some other, 
though that other, it may be, elsewhere is as rich, or richer 
in the same kind. For example, when Montaigne says that 
women have "l'esprit primesautier" that they reach a right 
conclusion, if they reach it at all, at the first bound^ what could 
we do in English with this " primesautier ?" and this impos- 
sibility of always matching one w T ord by one must be accept- 
ed as another necessary imperfection in this work. 

One language will give scope and opportunity for preg- 
nant plays upon words, such as St. Paul delights in, for which 
others afford no answering opportunity; for it is only by a 
rare good fortune that the paronomasia of one language can 
be represented by that of another. I refer to such as the yi- 
vioffKo/jiivr) and apayivojcrKOfiipr) of 2 Cor. iii., 2 ; the epya^ofiipovg 
and Trepiepya^ofiii-ovg of 2 Thess. iii., 11; and probably the 
e/uade and tirade (Tradfjfiara, fJLadijfiara) of Heb. v., 8. The loss, 
to be sure, on these occasions is not very serious ; yet this 
can not always be said. It can not, for instance, at Ephes. 
iii., 14, 15 : " For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heav- 
en and earth is named." How profound a significance the 
words of the apostle have, which we only imperfectly repro- 
duce, and this because the word " family" does not stand in 
etymological relation with " father," as itarpia does with ira- 
rrjp ; while no other word can be proposed in its stead capa- 
ble of presenting in English the sublime, play on words which 
exists in the Greek. To God the name " Father" by highest 
right competes, and " every family" which subsists upon 
earth subsists as such by right of its relation to him, and wit- 
nesses for this in the fact that the word Trarpia (here our En- 
glish breaks down) involves, and, indeed, is only the unfold- 
ing of, the word Trarrjp. If Trarpia. were abstract, which some 
have attempted to prove, but quite failed in so doing, we 
might venture on "fatherhood" instead of " family," which, 
indeed, would only be a going back to WiclifiVs translation. 
He, finding "paternitas" in the Vulgate — I do not know how 



ON THE INFERIORITY OF TRANSLATIONS, ETC. 27 

this came there, whether from a partial misunderstanding of 
7ra-jotd, or from a praiseworthy determination to reproduce at 
all costs by aid of "pater" and " paternitas" the Greek paro- 
nomasia — very fitly rendered it by "fatherhood." Ha-pia, 
however, is not thus abstract, but concrete ; and being so, 
help is not here to be found ; nor, I believe, any where, ex- 
cept in that living interpretation, that ministry of the Word, 
which should set before it as a constant aim to redress what- 
ever wrongs the readers of the Scripture not in its original 
tongues may be in danger of suffering. 

Again, our translators say, " Now I know in part, but then 
shall Iknoio even as also I am known" (1 Cor. xiii., 12) ; and 
we acquiesce in this, but reluctantly ; for who can be quite 
content here to lose the very remarkable change from the 
simple -yivuHTKu) to the composite and intenser £7riyj/a>o-o/ia<,by 
which the apostle expresses how much deeper, fuller, richer 
will be the knowledge of the world to come? — we acquiesce 
in it, because we have no verb connected with " to know" 
which expresses this higher, more intimate knowledge and 
insight. " Nosco" and " pernoscam" would do it in the Lat- 
in ; nothing that I see but "know" and "perfectly know" in 
the English. Commenting on these words — and it is only by 
commentary, not by translation, that their force can in En- 
glish be brought out — one of our divines has well said, " 'Etti- 
yvwaig and yvuxrig differ. 'EiriyvuHTiQ is >/ fiera rrjv Trpojrrjv rov 
irpayiiaroQ yvtiaiv 7ravTeXi]Q Kara cuva/iiv KaravorjaiQ. It is bring- 
ing me better acquainted with a thing that I knew before, a 
more exact viewing of an object that I saw before afar off. 
That little portion of knowledge which we had here shall be 
much improved; our eye shall be raised to see the same 
things more strongly and clearly."* 

Then, too, what one may call the audacities of a language, 

new and daring combinations of words, images so bold that 

no one ventures to reproduce them in another language — 

such as, keeping clear of, do yet approach so close to the 

* Culverwell, Spiritual Opticlcs, p. 180. 

s 



2 8 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

verge of extravagance, that tolerable, even sublime, in one 
language, they would be intolerable, perhaps ridiculous, in 
another — these will add to the perplexities of a translator. 
The New Testament does not, indeed, offer any large num- 
ber of these ; but the Old how many. In iEschylus they 
must well-nigh drive a translator to despair. But even in 
our version of the New a more vigorous image has been 
sometimes changed under a real or presumed necessity for a 
weaker, or, it may be, the imaginative word let go altogether, 
and replaced by one strictly literal. Thus we have shrunk 
from "the lip of the sea" (Heb. xi.,12), "the mouths of the 
sword" (Heb. xi., 34), and might with still better reason have 
done so from " the calves of the lips" (Hos. xiv., 2). One is, 
indeed, disposed to think that in this matter we have some- 
times run before the need, and let go a strength that might 
have been perfectly well retained. Thus, why should ax i &~ 
fxivovg (Mark i., 10) be " opened," and not rather " rent," which 
is only suggested in the margin (" cleft" in the Geneva) ? 
Or why should (3aoravt£6fxevov (Matt, xiv., 24) be merely " toss- 
ed" (a very little sea will " toss" a boat), and not rather " tor- 
mented," or some such word ? Wicliffe has the vigorous old 
word "snogged;" De Wette, "gej:>lagt." Compare Mark 
vi.,48. 

Other finer and more delicate turns of language must be 
suffered to escape. Thus our translators make St. Luke to 
say that " all the Athenians and strangers spent their time* 
in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new tiling" 
(Acts xvii., 21) ; for, indeed, how could they express that ex- 
quisite n Kairorepov of the sacred historian ? not " some new 
thing" only, but " something newer than the last" — the new 
so soon growing old and stale that a newer was ever needed 
to tickle their languid and jaded curiosity. f 

* Better, I think, " spent their leisure" (euicaipovv : " vacabant" in the Vul- 
gate) ; the word implying further that all their time was leisure, that " vaca- 
tion," to use Fuller's pun, "was their whole vocation." 

t Bengel : "Nova statim sordebant; noviora quajrebantur. " 



ON THE INFERIORITY OF TRANSLATIONS, ETC. 29 

And, lastly, it may be observed that what is perfectly clear 
in one language, through the wealth of inflections and other 
grammatical helps which it has, will lie open to misapprehen- 
sion and misunderstanding in another, which has either now 
renounced, or has never been a possessor of, these. What 
English reader of 2 Pet. iii., 16, coming to the words "in 
tohich are some things hard to be understood," does not refer 
" in which" to the " epistles" of St. Paul, mentioned in the 
verse preceding, and see in these words a general statement 
of the hardness and obscurity of those writings? but no read- 
er of the Greek could do this, or help seeing at once that " in 
which" referred to " these things" immediately going before, 
the things, namely, which St. Paul had spoken in his epistles 
concerning the long-suffering God, which things the unstable, 
as St. Peter declares, might easily wrest to their harm. If 
our Lord declares that the woman who has found her lost 
piece of silver " calleth liev frie?ids and her neighbors togeth- 
er" (Luke xv., 9), the Greek says that it is her female friends 
and neighbors ; the English says — and, as English now is,* 
it can say — nothing of the kind. At Luke xviii., 16, one read- 
ing in the English might be in doubt to whom the earlier 
" them" referred, to the " disciples" or " the little children ;" 
no doubt is possible in the Greek. There are, I dare say, 
some hundreds of such passages in the New Testament. 

One word I will add, in conclusion, in regard of such inev- 
itable losses as these, and those others which must also be 
considered as inevitable, in that, whatever men do, they will 
do it with a certain imperfection. We may say, looking at 
the matter from one point of view, that no book suffers so 
much from the accruing of these as the Bible ; while, looking 
at it from another, none suffers so little. Both which asser- 
tions may be illustrated thus : It were a matter of more re- 
gret if a grain or two were rubbed off from a solid mass of 

* I make this restriction ; for if we had preserved " friendess" and " neigh- 
bouress, " both employed by Wicliffe, though not in this place, our English 
migbt have said all which the Greek says. 



30 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

gold in its transmission from hand to hand (for the loss would 
be greater), than if the same injury had befallen some lump 
of meaner ore ; while yet, at the same time, no other could 
at all so well afford this detriment, which would not affect its 
value in any appreciable degree. It is even so with Holy 
Scripture. Its preciousness is such that any, the slightest, 
wrong which may befall it can not but be dearly grudged ; 
every precaution must needs be taken to avert such wrongs, 
or to reduce them to a minimum; while yet the bulk and 
parcel of truth which is there is so vast, so far exceeding all 
measures of value which we know, that the very slight harm 
and loss which may thus come to pass leaves it to all intents 
and purposes the same treasure, transcending all price, which 
before it was. 



ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 31 



CHAPTER III. 

ON THE ENGLISH OP THE AUTHORIZED VERSION. 

There is a question, namely, What is the worth of the En- 
glish in which our translation is composed ? which manifest- 
ly may be considered apart from another question, How far 
does this translation adequately represent its original ? and 
there are some advantages in keeping the two considerations 
separate. The English of our version, which I propose in 
this way to consider apart, has been very often, and very 
justly, the subject of highest praise, or, indeed, the occasion 
of thankful gratulation to the Giver of every good gift, who 
has given such an excellent gift to us; and if I do not reiter- 
ate in words of my own or of others these praises and grat- 
ulations, it is only because they have been uttered so often 
and so fully that it has become a sort of commonplace to re- 
peat them. One fears to encounter the rebuke which befell 
the rhetorician of old, who, having made a long and elabo- 
rate oration in praise of the strength of Hercules, was asked, 
Who has denied it ? at the close. Omitting, then, to praise 
in general terms what all must praise, it may yet be worth 
while to ask ourselves in what those singular merits of dic- 
tion, which by the confession of all it possesses, mainly con- 
sist ; nor shall I shrink from pointing out what appear to me 
its occasional weaknesses and blemishes, the spots upon the 
sun's disk, which impair its perfect beauty. 

When, then, we seek to measure the value of any style, 
there are two points w T hich claim our attention ; first, the 
words themselves ; and then, secondly, the words in their re- 
lations to one another, and as modified by these relations — 
in brief, the dictionary and the grammar. These I propose 
to consider in their order; and, first, the dictionary of our 



32 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

English Version. Now of this I will not hesitate in express- 
ing my conviction that it is superior to the grammar. The 
first seems to me nearly as perfect as possible ; there are 
more frequent flaws and faults in the second. In respect of 
words, we every where recognize in it that true delectus ver- 
borum on which Cicero* insists so earnestly, and in which so 
much of the charm of style consists. All the words used are 
of the noblest stamp, alike removed from vulgarity and ped- 
antry;, they are neither too familiar, nor, on the other side, 
not familiar enough ; they never crawl on the ground, as lit- 
tle are they stilted and far-fetched. And then how happily 
mixed and tempered are the Anglo-Saxon and Latin vocables. 
No undue preponderance of the latter makes the language 
remote from the understanding of simple and unlearned men. 
Thus we do not find in our version, as in the Rheims, whose 
authors might seem to have put off their loyalty to the En- 
glish language with their loyalty to the English crown, " od- 
ible" (Rom. i., 30), nor "impudicity" (Gal. v., 19), nor "lon- 
ganimity" (2 Tim. iii., 10), nor " coinquinations" (2 Peter ii., 
13, 20), nor " comessations" (Gal. v., 21), nor " postulations" 
(1 Tim. ii., 1), nor "exinanite" (Phil, ii., 7), nor " contristate" 
(Eph. iv., 30), nor " zealatours" (Acts xxi., 20), nor " agnition" 
(Philem. 6), nor "suasible" (Jam. iii., 17), nor " domesticals" 
(1 Tim. v., 8), nor " repropitiate" (Heb. ii., 17). f Our trans- 
lators, indeed, set very distinctly before themselves the avoid- 

* De Or at., iii., 37. 

f Where the word itself which the Eheims translators employ is a perfect- 
ly good one, it is yet curious and instructive to observe how often they have 
drawn on the Latin portion of the language, where we have drawn on the 
Saxon; thus they use "corporal" where we have "bodily" (L Tim. iv., 8), 
"coadjutor" where we have " fellow-worker" (Col. iv., 1 1 ; " work-fellow" in 
the old versions was better still), "incredulity" where we have "unbelief" 
(Heb. iii., 19, and often), " donary" where we have "gift" (Luke xxi., 5), 
" superedified" where we have "built up" (1 Pet. ii., 5), "precursor" where 
we have "forerunner" (Heb. vi., 20), "dominator" where we have "Lord" 
(Jude 4), "cogitation" where we have "thought" (Luke ix., 46), "fraterni- 
ty" where we have "brotherhood" (1 Pet. ii., 17); or they have the more 
Latin word where we the less, as " obsecrations" where we have "prayers" 
(Luke v., 33). 



OX THE EXGLISR OF OUR VERSIOX. 33 

ing of " inkkorn" terms. Speaking of their own version, and 
comparing it with the Rhemish, published some thirty years 
before, they say, " We have shunned the obscurity of the Pa- 
pists in the l Azims,' ' tunicke,' ' rationall,' ' holocausts,' ' pre- 
puce,' ' pasche' [they might have added ' scenopegia,' John 
vii., 2], and a number of such like, whereof their late transla- 
tion is full, and that of purpose to darken the sense." It is 
not a little curious that three of the words thus found fault 
with, namely, " tunic," "rational," and "holocaust," have be- 
come thoroughly naturalized in the language. 

And yet, while it is thus with the authors of our Version, 
there is no extravagant attempt on the other side to put un- 
der ban words of Latin or Greek derivation, where there are 
not, as- very often there could not be, sufficient equivalents 
for them in the homelier portion of our language. Indeed, 
they now and then employ those Latin where these were 
close to their hand : witness " celestial" and " terrestrial" (l 
Cor. xv., 40), where it was free to them to employ "heaven- 
ly" and "earthly;" " omnipotent," of which they make such 
sublime employment at Rev. xix., 6, where " almighty" would 
have equally served their turn, and would have been em- 
ployed if their first thought had been always to find an An- 
glo-Saxon word. But there is no affectation upon their part 
of excluding those other, which in their measure and degree 
have as good a right to admission as the most Saxon vocable 
of them all ; no attempt, like that of Sir John Cheke, who in 
his version of St. Matthew — in many respects a valuable mon- 
ument of English — substituted " hundreder" for " centurion," 
" freshman" for " proselyte," " gainbirth" — i. e., " againbirth" 
for " regeneration," with much else of the same kind. The 
fault, it must be owned, was in the right extreme, but was a 
fault and affectation no less. In regard of the rendering of 
one very notable word, I mean aya-77, they have gone back, 
as is well known, in a large number of passages (the most 
remarkable is 1 Cor. xiii.), from the rendering of the earlier 
Anglican versions, and for the Saxon " love" substituted the 



34 TRENCH ON A UTIL VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

Latin " charity," and this, which is the more worthy of note, 
in the face of Tyndale's strong protest against any such ren- 
dering.* * 

One of the most effectual means by which our translators 
have attained their rare felicity in diction, while it must di- 
minish to a certain extent their claims to absolute originali- 
ty, enhances in a far higher degree their good sense, moder- 
ation, and wisdom ; justifies the character which in a certain 
proud humility they claim to themselves, as " men greater in 
other men's eyes than in their own, and that sought the truth 
rather than their own praise." I allude to the extent to 
which they have availed themselves of the work of those who 
went before them, and incorporated this work into their own, 
every where building, if possible, on the old foundations, and 
displacing nothing for the mere sake of change. On this 
point we may fitly quote their own words, as best revealing 
to us the aspect under which they contemplated the work 
which they had in hand : " Truly, good Christian reader, we 
never thought from the beginning that we should need to 
make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good 
one; .... but to make a good one a better, or out of many 
good ones one principal good one, not justly to be excepted 
against — that hath been our endeavor, that our mark." 

It has thus come to pass that our Version, like a costly mo- 
saic, besides having its own felicities, is the inheritor of the 
successes in language of all the translations which went be- 
fore. Tyndale's was singularly rich in these, which is the 
more remarkable, as his other writings do not surpass in 
beauty or charm of language the average merit of his con- 
temporaries ; and though much of his work has been removed 
in the successive revisions which our Bible has undergone, 
very much of it still remains : the alterations are for the 
most part verbal, w T hile the forms and moulds into which he 
cast the sentences have been to a wonderful extent retained 
by all who succeeded him. And not merely these, and the 

* See his Answer unto Sir Thomas More's Dialogue — Works, 1573, p. 253. 



ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION 



35 



rhythm which is dependent upon these, are his, but even of 
his Xe^ig very much survives. To him we owe such phrases 
as " turned to flight the armies of the aliens,"* " the author 
and finisher of our faith ;" to him, generally, we owe more 
than to any single laborer in this field — as, indeed, may be 
explained partly, though not wholly, from the fact that he 
was the first to thrust in his sickle into this harvest. So 
willing were King James's translators to profit by all who 
went before them, that they did not decline to use what good 
the Rhemish Version occasionally, though rarely, offered. 
Thus the felicitous phrase, "the ministry of reconciliation" 
(2 Cor. v., 18), first appears in it; and the singularly happy 
rendering of /St'/^Xoc by "profane person" (Heb. xii., 16); 
and were probabty derived from it into our Version. Still, 
while they were thus indebted to those who went before 
them in the same sacred office, to Tyndale above all, for in- 
numerable turns of successful translation, which they have 
not failed to adopt and to make their own, it must not be 
supposed that very many of these were not of their own in- 
troduction. A multitude of phrases which, even more than 
the rest of Scripture, have become, on account of their beau- 
ty and fitness, " household words" and fixed utterances of the 
religious life of the English people, we owe to them, and they 
first appear in the Version of 1611 ; such, for instance, as "the 
Captain of our salvation" (Heb. ii., 10), " the sin which doth 
so easily beset us" (Heb. xii., 1)," the Prince of life" (Acts 
iii., 15). 

But in leaving, as I now propose to do, these generals, and 
entering on particulars, it is needful to make one preliminary 
observation. He who passes judgment on the English of our 
version — he, above all, who finds fault with it, should be fair- 
ly acquainted with the English of that age in which this Ver- 
sion appeared. Else he may be very unjust to that which 
he is judging, and charge it with inexactness of rendering, 

* It may be said that this is obvious : yet not so. The Rheims does not 
get nearer to it than "turned away the camp of foreigners. " 



36 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

where, indeed, it was perfectly exact according to the En- 
glish of the time, and has only ceased to be so now through 
subsequent changes or modifications in the meaning of words. 
Few, I am persuaded, who have studied our translation, and 
tried how far it will bear a strict comparison with the origi- 
nal which it undertakes to represent, but have at times been 
tempted to make hasty judgments here, and to pass sen- 
tences of condemnation, which they have afterward, on bet- 
ter knowledge, seen reason to recall, and to confess their own 
presumption in making. Certainly, for myself, in many places 
where I once thought our translators had been wanting in 
precision of rendering, I now perceive that, according to the 
English of their own day, their version is exempt from the 
faintest shadow of blame. It is quite true that their ren- 
dering has become in a certain measure inexact for us, but 
this from circumstances quite beyond their control, namely, 
through those mutations of language which never cease, and 
which cause words innumerable to drift impercej)tibly away 
from those meanings which once they owned. In many cases, 
no doubt, our Authorized Version, by its recognized authori- 
ty, by an influence silently working, but not the less pro- 
foundly felt, has kept words in their places, has given a fixity 
and stability of meaning to them which otherwise they would 
not have possessed ; but the currents at work in language 
have been sometimes so strong as to overbear even this con- 
trolling power. The most notable examples of the kind 
w r hich occur to me are the following : 

Matt, vi., 25. — "Take no thought for your life what ye shall 
eat, or what ye shall drink." This "take no thought" is 
certainly an inadequate translation in our present English of 
prj fiepifxrare. The precept, as we read it now, seems to ex- 
clude and to condemn that just forward-looking care which 
belongs to man, and differences him from the beasts which 
live only in the present ; and " most English critics have la- 
mented the inadvertence of our Authorized Version, w T hich, in 
bidding us ' take no thought' for the necessaries of life, pre- 



ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 37 

scribes to us what is impracticable in itself, and would be a 
breach of Christian duty even were it possible."* But there 
is no " inadvertence" here, nor, in this point at least, at Matt, 
x., 19. When our translation was made, " Take no thought" 
was a perfectly correct rendering of p) fxepijivaTe. " Thought" 
was then constantly used as equivalent to anxiety or solicit- 
ous care, as let witness this passage from Bacon :f " Harris, 
an alderman in London, was put in trouble, and died with 
thought and anxiety before his business came to an end ;" or, 
still better, this from one of the Somers Tracts (its date is of 
the reign of Elizabeth) : "In five hundred years only two 
queens have died in child-birth. Queen Catharine Parr died 
rather of thought "\. A yet better example even than either 
of these is that occurring in Shakespeare's Julius Ccesar§ 
(" take thought, and die for Caesar"), where " to take thought" 
is to take a matter so seriously to heart that death ensues. 
A comparison of 1 Sam. ix., 5 with x., 2, and of both with the 
original text, will make still more evident w^hat force our 
translators gave to the phrase " take thought." 

Luke xiii., 7. — " Why cumbereth it the ground ?" " Cum- 
bereth" seems here too weak and too negative a rendering 
of Karapyel, a word implying active positive mischief; and 
so no doubt it is in the present acceptation of " to cumber," 
which means no more than "to burden." But it was not 
so always. "To cumber" meant once to vex, annoy, injure, 
trouble ; Spenser speaks of " cumbrous gnats." It follows 
that when Bishop Andrews quotes the present passage,! 
" Why troubleth it the ground ?" (I do not know from whence 
he derived this " troubleth," 'which is not in any of our trans- 

* Scrivener, Notes on the New Testament, vol. i., p. 162 ; and comp. Al- 
ford, in loco. 

t History of Henry the Seventh. $ "Vol. i., p. 172. 

§ Act ii., sc. 1. The Paston Letters (vol. ii., p. 69, ed. 1840) supply an- 
other good example ; and Golding's Ovid, b. x., another : 

" Seven days he sat forlorn npon the bank, and never eat 
A bit of bread. Care, tears and thought, arid sorrow were his meat." 

II Works, vol. ii., p. 40. 



38 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

lations), and when Coverdale renders it, " Why hindereth it 
the ground ?" they seem, but are not really, more accurate 
than our own translators were. The employment by these 
last of " cumber" at Luke x., 40 (the only other place in the 
Authorized Version where the word occurs), is itself decisive 
of the sense they ascribed to it. Uepieinraro (literally " was 
distracted") is there rendered by them " was cumbered."* 

Acts xvii., 23. — "As I passed by and beheld your devo- 
tions." This was a perfectly correct rendering of ffepao-fiara 
at the time our translation was made, although as much can 
scarcely be affirmed of it now. " Devotions" is now abstract, 
and means the mental offerings of the devout worshiper; it 
was once concrete, and meant the outward objects to which 
these were rendered, as temples, altars, images, shrines, and 
the like ; "Heiligthumer" De Wette has very happily render- 
ed it; comp. Bel and Drag., 27, and 2 Thess. ii., 4, the only 
other passage in the New Testament where the word occurs, 
and where we have rendered izavra XeyofiEvov Qeov i) o^'/W^a, 
" all that is called God or that is worshiped" It is such — not 
the " devotions" of the Athenians worshiping, but the objects 
which the Athenians devoutly worshiped — which St. Paul af- 
firms that he " beheld," or, as it would be better, " accurately 
considered" (avadewpuv). Yet the following passage in Sid- 
ney's Arcadia will bear out our translators, and justify their 
use of " devotions" as accurate in their time, though no lon- 
ger accurate in ours : " Dametas began to look big, to march 
up and down, swearing by no mean devotions that the walls 
should not keep the coward from him."f 

* I have no doubt that most readers of that magnificent passage in Julius 
C'cesar, where Antony prophesies over the dead body of Coesar the ills of which 
that murder shall be the cause, give to "cumber" a Avrong sense in the fol- 
lowing lines : 

"Domestic fury and fierce civil strife 
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy." 

They understand, shall load with corpses of the slain, or, as we say, "encum- 
ber" — so at least I understood it long. A good, even a grand sense, but it is 
not Shakespeare's. He means, shall trouble or mischief. 

f I have not removed this paragraph in this second edition ; but the fact 



ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 39 

Acts xix., 37. — "Ye have brought hither these men, who 
are neither robbers of churches (lepoauXovg), nor blasphem- 
ers of your goddess." I long counted this "robbers of 
churches" if not positively incorrect, yet a slovenly and in- 
defensible transfer of Christian language to heathen objects; 
that " robbers of temples" or some such phrase, should rath- 
er have stood here. But there is no incorrectness in the 
phrase, as judged by the language of that day. "Church." 
is in constant use in early English for heathen and Jewish 
temples as well as for Christian places of worship. I might 
quote a large array of proofs ; I suppose Golding's Ovid 
would yield fifty examples of this use. Two, however, will 
suffice. In the first, which is from Holland's Pliny* the 
term is applied to a heathen temple : " This is that Latona 
which you see in the Church of Concordia in Rome ;" while 
in the second, from Sir John Cheke's translation of St. Mat- 
thew, it is a name given to the temple at Jerusalem : " And, 
lo, the veil of the Church was torn into two parts from the 
top downward" (Matt. xxvii.,51).f 

Acts xxi.,15. — "After three days we took up our carriages 
and went up to Jerusalem." A critic of the early part of 
this century makes himself merry with these words, and their 
inaccurate rendering of the original : " It is not probable that 
the Cilician tent-maker was either so rich or so lazy." And 
a more modern objector to the truthfulness of the Acts asks, 
How could they have taken up their carriages, when there is 
no road for wheels, nothing but a mountain track, between 
CaBsarea and Jerusalem ? But " carriage" is a constant word 
in the English of the sixteenth and seventeenth century! for 

■which I had not, but ought to have noted, namely, that our translators give 
as a marginal reading " gods that you "worship, 2 Thess. ii., 4," leaves it, on 
the whole, more probable that they employed "devotions," not in this ob- 
jective, but in its modern subjective sense, in which case the rendering is not 
to be defended. * Vol. ii., p. 502. 

t Again, in Marlowe's Translation of the First Booh of Lucan : 
"These troops should soon pull down the Church of Jove." 

t Spartacus charged his [Lentulus's] lieutenants, that led the army, over- 



40 TRENCH ON A TJTH VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

baggage, being that which men carry, and not, as now, that 
which carries them. Nor can there be any doubt that it is 
employed by our translators here, as also in one or two other 
passages where it occurs, in this sense (Judg. xviii., 21 ; 1 
Sam. xvii., 22) ; and while so understood, the words " took up 
our carriages" are a very sufficient rendering of the tTrioxeua- 
acifjievoi of the original. The Geneva has it correctly, though 
somewhat quaintly, " we trussed up our fardels." 

1 Cor. iv., 4. — " I know nothing by myself." This hardly 
conveys any distinct meaning to the English reader, or, if it 
suggests any, it is a wrong one. In his ovhlv e/jlclvtu) avvoiZa 
the apostle would say, "I know nothing of myself," in other 
words, " against myself;" "I have, so far as I can see into my 
own heart and life, a conscience void of offense." Examples 
of " by" thus used with the power of our modern " against" 
are not common even in our early literature, but from time 
to time occur. Thus, in Foxe's Booh of Martyrs, an inquis- 
itor to a poor woman whom he is examining, "Thou hast 
spoken evil words by the queen ;" and she answers, " No man 
living upon earth can prove any such things by me."* 

Ephes. iv., 3. — " Endeavoring to keep the unity of the 
Spirit in the bond of peace." Passages like this, in which 
the verb "endeavor" occurs, will sometimes seem to have 
been carelessly and loosely translated, when, indeed, they 
were rendered with perfect accuracy according to the En- 
glish of that day. " Endeavor," it has been well said, " once 
denoted all possible tension, the highest energy that could 
be directed to an object. With us it means the last feeble, 
hopeless attempt of a person who knows that he can not ac- 
complish his aim, but makes a conscience of going through 
some formalities for the purpose of showing that the failure 
is not his fault."f More than one passage suffers from this 

threw them, and took all their carriage''' [rtjv cnroaKtvriv liiraaav]. North's 
Plutarch's Lives, p. 470. 

* Examination of Elizabeth Young by Martin Hussie. 

t Lincoln s-Inn Sermons, by E. D. Maurice, p. 156. 



ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 41 

change in the force of "endeavor," as 2 Pet. i., 15, and tliits 
from the Ephesians still more. If we attach to " endeavor" 
its present meaning, we may too easily persuade ourselves 
that the apostle does no more .than bid us to attempt to pre* 
serve this unity, and that he quite recognizes the possibility 
of our being defeated in the attempt. He does no such 
thing ; he assumes success. 'Lirovla^ovTeQ means " giving all 
diligence," and " endeavoring" meant no less two centuries 
and a half ago. 

1 Tim. v., 4. — "If any widow have children or nephews." 
But why, it has been asked, are Uyova translated " nephews" 
here, and not " grandchildren" or " descendants ?" and why 
should "nephews" be specially charged with this duty of 
supporting their relatives ? The answer is, that "nephews" 
( = "nepotes") was the constant word for grandchildren and 
other lineal descendants, as witness the following passages ; 
this from Hooker : " With what intent they [the apocryphal 
books] were first published, those words of the nephew of Je- 
sus do plainly signify, 'After that my grandfather Jesus had 
given himself to the reading of the Law and of the Prophets, 
he purposed also to write something pertaining to learning 
and wisdom ;' "* and this from Holland : " The warts, black 
moles, spots, and freckles of fathers, not appearing at all 
upon their own children's skin, begin afterward to put forth 
and show themselves in their nephews, to wit, the children of 
their sons and daughters."! There is no doubt that " neph- 
ews" is so used here, as also at Judges xii., 14. Yet it has 
misled a scholar so accurate as the late Professor Blunt, who, 
writing of the apostolic times, urges that in them the duties 
of piety extended so far, that not children only, but " neph- 
ews," were expected to support their aged relations.;); 

1 Pet. ii., 4, 5. — " To whom coming, as unto a living stone, 
.... ye also as lively stones are built up." Many probably 

* Ecclesiastical Polity, b. v., c. xx. 

f Plutarch's Morals, p. 555. 

X Church of the First Three Centuries, p. 27. 



42 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

before now have wondered and regretted that XiQov favra be- 
ing translated " a living stone," Xidot Zuvteq, which follows im- 
mediately after, should be no more than " lively stones ;" 
" living," as applied to Christ, being thus brought down to 
" lively," as applied to Christians, with no corresponding re- 
duction in the original to warrant it. Now I think it certain- 
ly is to be regretted that our translators did not retain one 
and the same word, namely, " living," in both places, seeing 
that they found one and the same in their original. Still, for 
all this, it must not be forgotten that " lively" was far more 
nearly equipollent to " living" once than now it is, even if it 
was not so altogether. Examples in proof are given below.* 
I can not but think that, in case of a revision, words like 
these, which have imperceptibly shifted their position since 
our translation was made, should be exchanged for others 
now occupying the place which they occupied once. Such 
words, current intellectual money still, but whose value is 
different now from what once it was, are more perilous, more 
likely to deceive than words wholly obsolete. The last are 
like rocks which stand out from the sea ; we are warned of 
their presence, and there is little danger of our making ship- 
wreck upon them. But words like those just cited, as famil- 
iar now as they ever have been, but employed in quite dif- 
ferent meanings from those which they once possessed, are 
hidden rocks, which give no notice of their presence, and on 
which we may be shipwrecked, if I may so say, without so 
much as being aware of it. It would be manifestly desirable 
that these unnoticed obstacles to our seizing the exact sense 
of Scripture — obstacles which no carelessness of our transla- 
tors, but which Time in its onward course, has placed in our 
way — should be removed. "Res fugiunt, vocabula manent" 

* " Had I but seen thy picture in this plight, 
It would have madded me. What shall I do, 
Now I behold thy lively body so ?" 

Titus Andronicus, Act iii., sc. 1. 
" That his dear father might interment have, 
See, the young man entered a lively grave." 

Massinger, The Fatal Dowry, Act ii., sc.l. 



ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION 43 

— this is the eternal law of things in their relation to words, 
and it renders necessary at certain intervals a readjustment 
of the two. 

Let me too observe that in thus changing that which by 
the sjlent changes of time has become liable to mislead, we 
should only be working in the spirit, and according to the 
manifest intention, which in their time guided the translators 
of 1611. They evidently contemplated as part of their task 
the removing from their revision of such words as in the lapse 
of years had become to their contemporaries unintelligible or 
misleading. For instance, " to depart" no longer meant to 
separate; and just as at a later day, in 1661, "till death us 
depart" was changed in the Marriage Service for that which 
now stands there, "till death us do part ," so in their revision 
" separate" was substituted for " depart" (" depart us from the 
love of God") at Rom. viii., 39. "To allow" hardly meant 
any longer " to praise" (allaudare), " to have pleasure in ;" it 
was not, therefore, suffered to remain as the rendering of 
evdoKeiv, Heb. xii., 8, though, with a certain inconsistency, it 
was left at Luke xi., 48 as the rendering of avvevZoKiiv : " con- 
sent," which the Rheims has, is perhaps a little too weak, yet 
preferable there. 

At Matt, xxiii., 25, we have another example of the same. 
The words stood there up to the time of the Geneva version, 
"Ye make clean the outer side of the cup and of the platter, 
but within they are full of bribery and excess." " Bribery," 
however, about their time was losing, or had lost, its mean- 
ing of rapine or extortion, and was, therefore, no longer a fit 
rendering of ap7rayri ; the " bribour" or " briber" was not equiv- 
alent to the robber : they therefore did wisely and well in ex- 
changing " bribery" for " extortion" here. They dealt in the 
same spirit with " noisome" at 1 Tim. vi., 9. In the earlier 
versions of the English Church, and up to their revision, it 
stood, " They that will be rich fall into temptation and snares, 
and into many foolish and noisome (j3\a(3epag) lusts." "Noi- 
some," that is, when those translations were made, was sim- 

T 



44 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

ply equivalent to noxious or hurtful;* but in the beginning 
of the seventeenth century it was acquiring a new meaning, 
the same which it now retains, namely, that of exciting dis- 
gust rather than that of doing actual hurt or harm. Thus a 
tiger would have been " noisome" in old English ; a skunk or 
a polecat would be " noisome" in modern. Here was reason 
enough for the change which thev made. 

Indeed, our only complaint against them in this matter is, 
that they did not carry out this side of their revision con- 
sistently and to the full. Thus they have suffered the very 
word last mentioned, "noisome" I mean, to remain in some 
other passages from which it should no less have disappeared. 
Three or four of these occur in the Old Testament, as Job 
xxxi., 40 ; Psa. xci., 3 ; Ezek. xiv., 21 ; only one in the New, 
Rev. xvi., 2, where kclkvv zXkoq is certainly not "a noisome 
sore" in our sense of " noisome," that is, offensive or disgust- 
ing, but an " evil," or, as the Rheims has it, " a cruel sore." 
It is the same with " by-and-by." This, when they wrote, 
was ceasing to mean " immediately." The inveterate procras- 
tination of men had caused it to designate a remoter terra, 
even as " presently" does not any longer mean " at this pres- 
ent," but " in a little while ;" and " to intend any thing" is 
not now " earnestly to do," but " to purpose doing it." They 
did well, therefore, that in many cases, as at Mark ii., 12, they 
did not leave " by-and-by" as a rendering of evdewg and evOvc. 
They would have done still better if they had removed it in 
every case, and not suffered it in four places (Matt, xiii., 21; 
Mark vi., 25 ; Luke xvii., 1 ; xxi., 9) to remain. 

Again, " to grudge" was ceasing in their time to have the 
sense of" to murmur openly,'-' and was already signifying "to 
repine inwardly;" a "grudge" was no longer an open utter- 
ance of discontent and displeasure at the dealings of another,f 

* " He [the superstitious person] is persuaded that they he gods indeed, 
hut such as be noisome, hurtful, and doing mischief unto men." Holland, 
Plutarch's Morals, p. 260. 

t "Yea, without grudging, Christ suffered the cruel Jews to crown him 



ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 45 

but a secret resentment thereupon entertained. It was only- 
proper, therefore, that they should replace " to grudge" by 
f to murmur," and a " grudge" by a " murmuring," in such 
passages as Mark xiv., 5; Acts vi., 1. On two occasions, 
however, they have suffered " grudge" to stand, where it no 
longer conveys to us with accuracy the meaning of the orig- 
inal, and even in their time must have failed to do so. These 
are 1 Pet. iv., 9, where they render avev yoyyvan&v, " without 
grudging," and James v., 9, where p) trrevagere is rendered 
"Grudge not."* These renderings were inherited from their 
predecessors, but their retention was an oversight. 

In another instance our translators have failed to carry out 
to the full the substitution of a more appropriate phrase for 
one, which indeed, unlike those others, could have been at no 
time worthy of praise, or any thing else than more 'or less 
misleading. They plainly felt that "Easter," which had 
designated first a heathen, and then a Christian festival, was 
not happily used to set forth a Jewish feast, even though that 
might occupy the same place in the Jewish calendar which 
Easter occupied in the Christian ; and they therefore removed 
"Easter" from places out of number where in the earlier ver- 
sions it had stood as the rendering of Ilacxa, substituting 
"Passover" in its room. With all this, they have suffered 
"Easter" in a single instance — at Acts xii., 4, " intending 
after EJaster to bring him forth to the people" — to remain ; 
sometimes, I am sure, to the perplexity of the English read- 
er. "Jewry," in like manner, which has been replaced by 
"Judaea" almost every where else, has yet been allowed, I 
must needs believe by the same oversight, twice to continue 
(Luke xxiii., 5 ; John vii., 1). 

with most sharp thorns, and to strike him with a reed." Examination of 
William Thorpe, in Foxe's Booh of Martyrs. 

* As an evidence of the perplexity which " grudge," used as it is here, was 
calculated to create, see Manton's Commentary on St. James, in loco, 1651, p. 
549, who is " unwilling to recede from our own translation," but is unable to 
accept "Grudge not," to which he gives its modern sense, as a fair rendering 
of fit) (T-evd^tTS, which indeed, so regarded, it is not. 



46 TRENCH ON A UTR. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

Thus much in regard of obsolete uses of words not in 
themselves obsolete ; but the way of dealing with words act- 
ually themselves obsolete is not by any 1 means so clear. It 
does not, indeed, seem difficult to lay down a rule here ; the 
difficulties mainly attend its application. The rule seems to 
me to be this : Where words have become perfectly unintel- 
ligible to the great body of those for whom the translation is 
made, the i&wrcu of the Church, they ought clearly to be ex- 
changed for others ; for the Bible works not as a charm, but 
as reaching the heart and conscience through the intelligent 
faculties of its hearers and readers. Thus is it with "taches," 
" ouches," " knops," " neesings," " mufflers," " wimples," " ha- 
bergeon," "brigandine," " boiled," " ear" (arare), " daysman," 
in the Old Testament, words dark even to scholars, where 
their scholarship is rather in Latin and Greek than in early 
English. Of these, however, there is hardly one in the New 
Testament. There is, indeed, in it no inconsiderable amount 
of archaism, but of a quite different character; words which, 
while they are felt by our people to be old and unusual, are 
yet, if I do not deceive myself, perfectly understood by them, 
by wise and simple, educated and uneducated alike. These, 
shedding round the sacred volume the reverence of age, re- 
moving it from the ignoble associations which will often 
cleave to the language of the day, should on no account be 
touched, but rather thankfully acknowledged and carefully 
preserved. "The dignity resulting from archaisms,"* in 
Bishop Horsley's words, " is not to be too readily given up." 
For, indeed, it is good that the phraseology of Scripture 
should not be exactly that of our common life ; that it should 
be removed from the vulgarities, and even the familiarities, 
of this ; just as there is a sense of fitness which dictates that 
the architecture of a church should be different from that of 
a house. 

It might seem superfluous to urge this, yet it is far from 
so being. It is well-nigh incredible what words it has been 
* Biblical Criticism, vol. iii., p. 301. 



ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 47 

sometimes proposed to dismiss from our version on the 
ground that they "are now almost or entirely obsolete." 
Symonds thinks "clean escaped" (2 Peter ii., 18) "a very 
low expression ;" and, on the plea of obsoleteness, Wemyss 
proposed to get rid of "straightway," "haply," "twain," 
"athirst," "wax," "lack," "ensample," "jeopardy," "gar- 
ner," " passion," with a multitude of other words not a whit 
more aloof from our ordinary use. Purver, whose New and 
Literal Translation of the Old and New Testament appeared 
in 1764, has an enormous list of expressions that are " clown- 
ish, barbarous, base, hard, technical, misapplied, or new coin- 
ed," and among these are " beguile," "boisterous," " lineage," 
" perseverance," " potentate," " remit," " seducers," " shorn," 
"swerved," "vigilant," "unloose," "unction," "vocation." 
For each of these (many hundreds in number) he proposes to 
substitute some other. 

And the same worship of the fleeting present, of the tran- 
sient fashions of the hour in language, with the same con- 
tempt of that stable past which in all likelihood will be the 
enduring future, long after these fashions have passed away 
and are forgotten, manifests itself to an extravagant degree 
in the version of the American Bible Union. It needs but 
for a word to have the slightest suspicion of age upon it, to 
have ceased, it may be only for the moment, to be the cur- 
rent money of the street and the market-place, and there is 
nothing for it but peremptory exclusion. "Chasten" and 
"chastening," "to better," "to faint," "to quicken," "con- 
versation," " saints," " wherefore," " straitly," " wroth," with 
hundreds more, are thrust out, avowedly upon this plea, and 
modern substitutes introduced in their room. I can fancy no 
more effectual scheme for debasing the version, nor, if it were 
admitted as the law of revision, for the lasting impoverish- 
ment of the English tongue. One can only compare this 
course with a custom of the Fiji islanders, who, as soon as 
their relations begin to show signs of age, put them out of 
the way. They, however, have at least this to say for them- 



48 TRENCH ON A JJTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

selves, that these old would grow oldeiymore helpless, more 
burdensome every day. It is nothing of the kind with the 
words which, on something of a similar plea, are forcibly dis- 
missed. A multitude of these, often the most precious ones, 
after a period of semi-obsoleteness, of withdrawal from active 
service for a while, obtain a second youth, pass into free and 
unquestioned currency again. In proof of this, we need only 
to refer to such a document as Speght's Glossary of " old and 
obscure words" in Chaucer, of date 1667.* A very large pro- 
portion of these are not " old" and not " obscure," have not 
the faintest shadow of obsoleteness clinging to them at the 
present. But nothing would so effectually hinder this reju- 
venescence, this palingenesy of words, as the putting a ban 
upon them directly they pass out of vulgar use; as this reso- 
lution, that if they have withdrawn for ever so brief a time 
from the every-day service of men, they shall never be per- 
mitted to return to it again. A true lover of his native 
tongue will adopt another course. 

" Obscurata diu populo bonus eruet ;" 
and words which are in danger of disappearing, instead of 
bidding them begone, he will do his best to win back and to 
detain. 

This retaining of the old diction in all places where a high- 
er interest, that, namely, of being understood by all, did not 
imperatively require the substitution of another phrase, would 
be most needful, not merely for the reverence which attaches 
to it, and for the avoiding every unnecessary disturbance in 
the minds of the people, but for the shunning of another gan- 
ger, which ought not lightly to be hazarded. Were the sub- 
stitution of new for old carried out to any large extent, this 
most injurious consequence would follow, namely, that our 
translation would be no longer of a piece, not any more one 
web and woof, but in part English of the seventeenth centu- 
ry, in part English of the nineteenth. Now, granting that 

* See some more proofs of the same in my English Past and Present, 
fourth edition, p. 80. 



ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 49 

English of the nineteenth century is as good as English of 
the seventeenth, of which there may be very reasonable 
doubts, still they are not the same ; the differences between 
them are considerable. Some of these differences we can ex- 
plain, others we must be content only to feel. But even 
those who could not explain any part of them would yet be 
conscious of them, would be pained by such a work in a sense 
of incongruity, of new patches on an old garment, and of 
those failing to agree with this.* Now all will admit that it 
is of vast importance that the Bible of the nation should be 
a book capable of being read with delight — I mean quite 
apart from its higher claim as God's Word to be read with 
devoutest reverence and honor. It can be so now. But the 
sense of pleasure and satisfaction in it, I mean merely as the 
foremost English classic, would be greatly impaired by any 
alterations which seriously affected the homogeneousness of 
its style. And this, it must be remembered, is a danger al- 
together new, one which did not at all beset the former re- 
visions. From Tyndale's first edition of his New Testament 
in 1526 to the Authorized Version there elapsed in all but 
eighty-five years, and this period was broken up into four or 
five briefer portions by Cranmer's, Coverdale's, the Geneva, 
the Bishops' Bible, which were published in the interval be- 
tween one date and the other. But from the date of King- 
James's Translation (1611) to the present day nearly two 

* The same objection would attend the introduction of words in themselves 
old, but employed in modern senses, such as were quite foreign to them when 
our Version was made. For instance, the American Bible Union substitutes 
"reflexion" for "discretion," as a rendering of «"lS3tp, Prov. ii., 1 1 . But "re- 
flexion" was not used to designate a mental operation till toward the end of 
the seventeenth century. It belongs to the Lockian period of mental philos- 
ophy, not to the Baconian ; if, indeed, Locke himself was not the first to em- 
ploy "reflexion" in this sense. Webster, in like manner, substitutes "ex- 
pire" for "give up the ghost;" but "expire," in this sense at least, belongs 
also to the latter half, not to the former, of the same century. He substitutes 
"plunder" for "spoil" — a worse error; for "to plunder," as is familiar to 
most, was a word unknown to the language till it was brought here, just 
about the beginning of our Civil Wars, by some who had served under Gus- 
tavus Adolphus in Germany. 



50 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

hundred and fifty years have elapsed ; and more than this 
time, it can not be doubted, will have elapsed before any 
steps are actually taken in this matter. When we argue for 
the facilities of revision now from the facilities of revision on 
previous occasions, we must not forget that the long interval 
of time which has elapsed since our last review of the En- 
glish text, so very much longer than lay between any of the 
preceding, has in many ways immensely complicated the 
problem, has made many precautions necessary now, which 
would have been superfluous then.* 

Certainly, too, when we read what manner of stuff is offer- 
ed to us in exchange for the language of our Authorized Ver- 
sion, we learn to prize it more highly than ever. Indeed, we 
hardly know the immeasurable worth of its religious diction 
till we set this side by side with what oftentimes is proffered 
in its room. Thus, not to speak of some suggested changes 
which would be positively offensive, we should scarcely be 
gainers in perspicuity or accuracy if for Jam. i., 8, which now 
stands "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways," 
we were to read, "A man unsteady in his opinions is uncon- 
stant in all his actions" (Wemyss). Our gains would not be 
greater if" Count it all joy when ye fall into divers tenrpta- 

* It is an eminent merit in the Revision of the Authorized Version by Five 
Clergymen, of which the Gospel of St. John and the Epistle to the Romans 
have already appeared, that they have not merely urged by precept, but shown 
by proof, that it is possible to revise our Version, and at the same time to pre- 
serve unimpaired the character of the English in which it is composed. Nor 
is it only on this account that we may accept this work as by far the most 
hopeful contribution which we have yet had to the solution of a great and 
difficult problem, but also as showing that where reverent hands touch that 
building, which some would have wholly pulled down that it might be wholly 
built up again, these find only the need of here and there replacing a stone 
which had been incautiously built into the wall, or which, trustworthy materi- 
al once, has now yielded to the lapse and injury of time, while they leave the 
building itself in its main features and frame-work untouched. Differing as 
the revisers occasionally do even among themselves, they will not wonder that 
others sometimes differ from the conclusions at which they have arrived ; but 
there can, I think, be no difference upon this point, namely, that their work 
deserves the most grateful recognition of the Church. 



OX THE EXGLISH OF OUR VEJRSIOX. 51 

tions" (Jam. i., 2) were replaced, as Turabull, one of our latest 
workers in this field, would have it, by the following : "Keep 
yourselves perfectly cheerful when you are exposed to a va- 
riety of trials." So, too, the first clause of Col. ii., 22 may 
not be very satisfactory as it now stands; yet who would 
recognize " injunctions which are all detrimental by their im- 
proper use," which is Turnbull's again, as indeed an improved 
translation ? Xeither would the advantage be very evident 
if" I have a baptism to be baptized with" (Luke xii., 50) gave 
place to " I have an immersion to undergo." " Wrath to 
come" we may well be contented to retain, though we are of- 
fered " impending vengeance" in its place. " Shall cut him 
asunder" is certainly a more vigorous, not to say a more ac- 
curate rendering of lL^p-o^)aei than " will punish him with 
the utmost severity" (Matt, xxiv., 51). There is not so great 
plainness of speech in " the deadness of Sarah's womb" that 
it'needs to be exchanged for "Sarah's incapacity for child- 
bearing" (Rom. iv., 20).* "In chambering and wantonness" 
would not be improved on even though we were to substi- 
tute for it " in unchaste and immodest gratifications." Dr. 
Campbell's work " On the Four Gospels" contains disserta- 
tions which have their value ; yet the profit would be small 
of superseding Mark vi., 19, 20, as it now stands, by the fol- 
lowing: "This roused Herodias's resentment, who would have 
killed John, but could not, because Herod respected him, and, 
knowing him to be a just and holy man, protected him, and 
did many things recommended by him, and heard him with 
pleasure." Of Harwood's Liberal Translation of the JVew 
Testament (London, 1768), and the follies of it, not very far 
from blasphemous, it is unnecessary to give any specimens. 

* I thought at first that it was the mere love of slip-slop in the place of 
genuine English which had induced this change ; but when, turning to anoth- 
er page of Mr. Sawyer's new Version (Boston, 1858), from which this and the 
last specimen are drawn, I met, "Can he become an unborn infant of his 
mother a second time ?" substituted for " Can he enter the second time into 
his mother's womb?" (John iii., 4), I at once recognized that it was that ex- 
aggerated sense of propriety, so rife in America, which we more justly count 
impropriety, that dictated both these alterations. 



5 2 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

When we consider, not the words of our Version one by 
one, but the words in combination, as they are linked to one 
another, and by their position influence and modify one an- 
other — in short, the accidence and the syntax, this, being 
good, is yet not so good as the selection of the words them- 
selves. There are undoubtedly inaccuracies and negligences 
here. Bishop Lowth long ago pointed out several faults in 
the grammatical construction of sentences ;* and although it 
must be confessed that now and then lie is hypercritical, and 
that his objections will not stand, yet others which he has 
not pressed would be found to supply the place of those which 
must therefore be withdrawn. 

But here too, and before entering on this matter, there is 
room for the same observation which was made in respect of 
the words of our translation. Many charges have also been 
lightly and ignorantly, some presumptuously, made. Our 
translators now and then appear ungrammatical because they 
give us, as they needs must, the grammar of their own day, 
and not the grammar of ours.f It is curious to find Bishop 
XewcomeJ taking them to task for using "his" or "her" 
where they ought to have used " its," as in passages like the 
following : " But if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith 
shall it be salted ?" (Matt, v., 13). " Charity doth not behave 
itself unseemly, seeketh not her own" (1 Cor. xiii., 5 ; comp. 

* In his Short Introduction to English Grammar. 

f The French Academy, in the Preface to the hew Dictionnaire Historique 
de la Langue Franfaise, has some excellent remarks in respect of acts of sim- 
ilar injustice which often are committed, p. xv. : " Ces ecrivains y seront 
quelquefois defendus contre d mdiscretes critiques, qui leur ont reproche 
comme des fautes de langage ce qui n'etait que l'emploi legitime de la langue 
de leur temps. A chaque epoque s'etablissent des habitudes, des conventions, 
des regies meme, auxquelles n'ont pu assurement se conformer par avance les 
ecrivains des epoques anterieures, et qu'il n'est ni juste ni raisonnable de leur 
opposer, comme s'il s'agissait de ces premiers principes dont l'autorite est ab- 
solue et universelle. C'est pourtant en vertu de cette jurisprudence retroact- 
ive qu'ont ete condamnees, chez d'excellents auteurs, des manieres de par- 
lor alors admises, et auxquelles un long abandon n'a pas toujours enleve ce 
qu'elles avaient de grace et de vivacite." 

X Historical View of the English Biblical Translations, Dublin, 1792, p. 289. 



OX THE ENGLISH OF OUR YERSIOX. 53 

Rev. xxii., 2). " This sometimes," he complains, " introduces 
strange confusion." But this " confusion," as he calls it, " this 
inaccuracy in grammar," as Webster has styled it, was indeed 
no confusion, no inaccuracy at all. When our translators 
wrote, it was inevitable, or at least could only be avoided by 
circumlocutions, as by the use of " thereof;" nor, moreover, 
did this usage present itself as any confounding of masculine 
and neuter, or of personal and impersonal, at the time when 
our Version was made ; for then that very serviceable, but 
often very inharmonious little word " its," as a genitive of 
"it," had not appeared, or had only just appeared, timidly 
and rarely, in the language,* and " his" was quite as much a 
neuter as a masculine. 

Others have in other points found fault with the grammar 
of our Version where, in like manner, they " have condemned 
the guiltless," their objections frequently serving only to re- 
veal their own unacquaintance with the history and past evo- 
lution of their native tongue — an unacquaintance excusable 
enough in others, yet hardly in those who set themselves up 
as critics and judges in so serious and solemn a matter as is 

* I have elsewhere entered on this matter somewhat more fully {English 
Past and Present, 4th ed., p. 128 sqq.), and have there observed that "its" 
nowhere occurs in our Authorized Version. Lev. xxv., 5 ("of its own ac- 
cord"), which had been urged as invalidating my assertion, does not so real- 
ly ; for reference to the first, or, indeed, to any of the early editions, will 
show that in them the passage stood "of it own accord." Nor is "it" here 
a misprint for "its;" for we have exactly the same "by it own accord" in 
the Geneva Version, Acts xii., 10 ; and in other English books of the begin- 
ning of the seventeenth century, which never employ "its." Thus, in Rog- 
ers's Naaman the Syrian, published in 1642, but the lectures delivered some 
eight years earlier : " I am at this mark, to withdraw the soul from the life 
of it own hand," Preface, p. i. ; and again : " The power of the Spirit is such 
that it blows at it own pleasure," p. 441 ; and once more : "The scope which 
mercy proposes to herself in the turning of the soul to God, even the glory 
of it own self," p. 442. There are a few examples of "its" in Shakespeare, 
but several of "it," as it were gradually preparing the other's way. Thus, 
in The Winter's Tale, Act iii., sc. 2 : "The innocent milk in it most inno- 
cent mouth;" and again, King John, Act ii.,sc. 1: " Go to it grandame, 
child." There is a full treatment of this word, with notices of the first ap- 
pearance of it, in Mr. Craik's very valuable work, On the English of Shake- 
speare, p. 91 . 



54 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

here brought into judgment. This ignorance is indeed some- 
times surprising. Thus Wemyss* complains of a false con- 
cord at Rev. xviii., 17 : "For in one hour so great riches is 
come to naught." He did not know that " riches" is proper- 
ly no plural at all, and the final " s" in it no sign of a plural, 
but belonging to the word in its French form, "richesse," 
and that "riches" has only become a plural, as "alms" and 
" eaves" are becoming, and "peas" has become, such, through 
a general forgetfulness of this fact. When Wicliffe wants a 
plural he adds another " s," and writes " richessis" (Rom. ii., 
4 ; Jam. v., 2). At the same time it is undoubtedly true that, 
when our Version was made, "riches" was already commonly 
regarded and dealt with as a plural ; in this Version itself it 
is generally so used,f and therefore it would have been better 
for consistency's sake if they had made no exception here ; 
but there is no grammatical error in the case any more than 
when Shakespeare writes, "The riches of the ship is come to 
shore." The same objector finds fault with "asked an alms" 
(Acts iii., 3), and suggests " asked some alms''' in its room, ev- 
idently on the same assumption that " alms" is plural. Nei- 
ther can he tolerate our rendering of 1 Tim. v., 23: "Use a 
little wine for thine often infirmities;" but complains of" oft- 
en," an adverb, here used as though it were an adjective ; 
while, indeed, the adjectival use of "oft," "often," surviving 
still in "ofttimes" " oftentimes" is the primary, the adverb- 
ial merely secondary. 

But, all frivolous, ungrounded objections set aside, there 
will still remain a certain number of passages where the 
grammatical construction is capable of improvement. In gen- 
eral, the very smallest alteration will set every thing right. 
These are some : 

Heb. v., 8. — " Though he icere a Son, yet learned he obe- 

* Biblical Gleanings, p. 212. 

t But not always; for at Jer. xlviii., 36 it stood in the early editions, 
" The riches that he hath gotten is perished." In such modern editions as I 
have consulted, " is" has been tacitly changed into "are." 



ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 55 

dience by the things which he suffered." If the apostle had 
been putting a possible hypothetical case, this would be cor- 
rect ; for example, " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in 
him" (Job xiii., 15), is without fault. But here, on the con- 
trary, he is assuming a certain conceded fact, that Christ was 
a Son, and that, being such, and though he teas such, yet in 
this way of suffering he learned obedience. "Though" is 
here a concessive conditional particle, the Latin " etsi" or 
" etiamsi" as followed by an indicative, and should have it- 
self been followed by such in our Version. It ought to be, 
" Though he was a Son, etc." 

John ix., 31. — " If any man be a worshiper of God, and do- 
eth his will, him he heareth." As in the passage just noted 
we have a subjunctive instead of an indicative, an actual ob- 
jective fact dealt with as though it were only a possible sub- 
jective conception, so here we have just the converse, an in- 
dicative instead of a subjunctive. It is true that in modern 
English the subjunctive is so rapidly disappearing, that "If 
any man doeth his will" might very well pass. Still it was 
an error when our translators wrote ; and there is, at any 
rate, an inconcinnity in allowing the indicative " doeth," in 
the second clause of the sentence, to follow the subjunctive 
"be" in the first, both equally depending upon "if:" one 
would gladly, therefore, see a return to "do his will," which 
stood in Tyndale's version. 

1 John v., 15. — "And if we know that he hear us, whatso- 
ever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we de- 
sired of him." In this sentence the two verbs " know" and 
" hear" are not both dependent on " if," but only the former ; 
"hear," therefore, inherited from Tyndale, is incorrect, and 
the correction of the Geneva version should have been admit- 
ted: "And if we know that he heareth us, etc." 

Matt, xvi., 15.—" Whom say ye that I am ?" The English 
is faulty here. It ought plainly to be, " Who say ye that I 
am ;" as is evident if only " who" be put last : " Ye say that 
I am who?" The Latin idiom, "Quern me esse dicitis?" 



56 TRENCH ON AUTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

probably led our translators, and all who went before them, 
astray. Yet the cases are not in the least parallel. If the 
English idiom had allowed the question to assume this shape, 
" Whom say ye me to be?" then the Latin form would have 
been a true parallel, and also a safe guide ; the accusative 
" whom? not, indeed, as governed by " say," but as correla- 
tive to the accusative " me," being then the only correct case, 
as the nominative " who," to answer to the nominative " I," 
is the only correct one in the passage as it now stands. The 
mistake repeats itself on several occasions ; thus, at Matthew 
xvi., 13 ; Mark viii., 27, 29 ; Luke ix., 18, 20 ; Acts xiii., 25. 

Heb. ix., 5. — "And over it the cherubims of glory." But 
" cherubim" being already plural, it is excess of expression 
to add another, an English plural, to the Hebrew, which our 
translators on this one occasion of the word's occurrence m 
the New Testament, and always in the Old, have done. Their 
choice was between " cherubim" or " cherubs." In this latter 
case they would have dealt with " cherub" as a naturalized 
English word, forming an English plural. There would have 
been nothing to object to this, just as there would be noth- 
ing to object to " automatons" or " terminuses," which ulti- 
mately, no doubt, will be the plurals of " automaton" and 
"terminus," as "dogmas" and not "dogmata" (Hammond) is 
now the plural of " dogma ;" while there would be much to 
object to " automatas," or " terminies," or to " erratas," though, 
strangely enough, we find this in Jeremy Taylor, as we do 
"synonymas" in Mede. It. might be free to use either "ge- 
niuses" or " genii" as the plural of " genius" (we do, in fact, 
employ both, though, like the Latin " loci" and " loca," in dif- 
ferent senses), but not "geniies;" and it is exactly this sort 
of error into which our translators have here fallen. 

Phil, ii., 3. — "Let each esteem other better than themselves.' 1 '' 
Compare with this Rev. xx.,13: "They were judged, every 
man according to their works." The same exception must 
be taken against both passages. "Each" and " every," though 
alike implying many, alike resolve that many into its units, 



ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 



57 



and refer to it in these its constituent parts, with only the 
difference that " each" segregates, and " every" aggregates 
the units which compose it. 

Rev. xxi., 12. — "And had a wall great and high." The 
verb " had" is here without a nominative. All that is neces- 
sary is to return to Wicliffe's translation : "And it had a 
wall great and high." 

Again, we much regret the frequent use of adjectives end- 
ing in " ly" as though they were adverbs. This termination, 
being that of so great a number of our adverbs, easily lends 
itself to the mistake, and at the same time often serves to 
conceal it. Thus our translators at 1 Cor. xiii.,5 say of char- 
ity that it " doth not behave itself unseemly.'''' Now this, 
at first hearing, does not sound to many as an error, because 
the final "ly" of the adjective "unseemly" causes it to pass 
with them as though it were an adverb; but substitute an- 
other equivalent adjective — say " doth not behave itself im- 
proper" or "doth not behave itself unbefitting''' — and the vi- 
olation of the laws of grammar makes itself felt at once. 
Compare Tit. ii., 12 : " soberly, righteously, and godly in this 
present world." It ought to be " godlily" here, as " unseem- 
lily" in the other passage; or, if this repetition of the final 
" ly" is unpleasing to the ear, as indeed it is, then some other 
word should be sought. The error, which, it must be owned, 
can plead some of the greatest names in English literature in 
its support, recurs in 2 Tim. hi., 12 ; Jude 15 ; and is not un- 
frequent in the Prayer-book. Thus we find it in the Thirty- 
sixth Article : " We decree all such to be rightly, orderly, and 
lawfully consecrated.* 

* It is curious to note how frequent are the errors arising from the same 
cause. Thus I rememher meeting in Foxe's Book of Martyrs (I have not 
the exact reference) the words "if this be perpend." Here it is clear that 
Foxe was for the moment deceived by the termination of "perpend," so like 
the usual termination of the past participle, and did not observe that he ought 
to have written ' ' if this be perpended. " How often we hear of the " Diocle- 
tian persecution :" the English is here as faulty as if we were to speak of the 
"Deems persecution : " so, too, of the " Novatian schism." In each case the 
final "an" deceives. In our own dav Tennvson treats "eaves" as if the 



58 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

Should a revision of our version ever be attempted, it 
seems to me that the same principle should rule in dealing 
with archaic forms as I have sought to lay down in respect 
of archaic words. Nothing but necessity should provoke al- 
teration ; thus there can be no question but that our old En-' 
glish preterites " clave," " drave," " sware," " tare," " brake," 
"spake," "strake," and I think also "lift," should stand. 
They are as good English now as they were two centuries 
and a half ago : in many cases they are the forms still in use 
among our common people, if not in towns, yet in the coun- 
try ; and even where they are not, they create no perplexity 
in the minds of any, but serve profitably to difference the 
language of Scripture from the language of common and ev- 
ery-day life. It is otherwise, as it seems to me, with archa- 
isms which are in positive opposition to the present usage 
of the English tongue. Thus "his" and "her" should be re- 
placed by "its" at such passages as Matt, v., 13; Mark ix., 
50 ; Luke xiv., 34 ; Rev. xxii., 2 ; 1 Cor. xiii., 5 ; which might 
be done almost without exciting the least observation ; so 
also " which" by " who," wherever a person, and not a thing, 
is referred to. This, too, might be easily done ; for our trans- 
lators have no certain law here : for instance, in the last chap- 
ter of the Romans, " which" occurs seven times, referring to 
a person or persons, " who" exactly as often. The only temp- 
tation to retain this use of" which" would be to mark by its 
aid the distinction between ogtiq and 6'c, so hard to seize in 
English. At the same time, a retention with, this view would 
involve many changes, seeing that our translators did not 
turn " which" to this special service, but for 6q and oa-ig em- 
ployed " who" and " which" quite promiscuously. 

final " s" were the sign of the plural, which being dismissed, one might have 
"eave" for a singular; and he writes "the cottage eave ;" but "eaves" 
(" efese" in the Anglo-Saxon) is itself the singular. With the same moment- 
ary inadvertence Lord Macaulay deals with the final "s" in "Cyclops"' as 
though it were the plural sign, and speaks in one of the late volumes of his 
history of a "Cyclop;" and pages might be filled with mistakes which have 
their origin in similar causes. 



ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION 59 

Before leaving this part of the subject, it may be well to 
observe that a large amount of tacit unacknowledged revi- 
sion of our version has found place at different times, lead- 
ing to the removal of many antiquated forms, out of which 
it results that a copy of the Authorized Bible at the present 
day differs in many details from the same as it first was is- 
sued by the king's printer, though professing to be absolute- 
ly identical with it. It would be hypercritical to object to 
all which has been in this way done, though one hardly sees 
by what right the changes, however desirable, were made. 
The following alterations, which have come under my eye, 
may be noticed. "Moe," which stood in several places in 
the exemplar edition (at John iv., 41 ; Gal. iv., 27), has been 
replaced by " more ;" " fet," the old perfect of" fetch," is now 
printed "fetched" (Acts xxviii., 13); "lift," where it stands 
as a perfect, has been altered to "lifted" (Luke xi., 27.; Acts 
ix.,41), yet not uniformly, for in more than one place "lift" 
has been allowed to stand (Luke xvi., 23). "Kinred," the 
older form of the word, has every where been changed into 
" kindred ;" and " flix" — this, too, the older form* — has in like 
manner yielded to "flux" (Acts xxviii., 8). "Apollo" stood 
in several places instead of "Apollos," which in like manner 
has been removed (1 Cor. iii., 22 ; iv., 6) ; " ought," as the per- 
fect of" owe," has been changed into " owed" (Matt, xviii., 24, 
28; Luke vii., 41); the stately " Hierusalem" has everywhere 
been changed to " Jerusalem." Less to be justified than any 
of these is the change of " broided," another form of " braid- 
ed," into " broidered" (l Tim. ii., 9) ; while least excusable of 
all is the change of " shame/asfaess," in the same verse, into 
" shame/acecftiess," another and later word growing out of 
the corruption of the earlier. " Shamefastness" is formed 
upon " shamefast," that is, " fast," or established, in honorable 
" shame ;" just as " steadfastness" on " steadfast," " soothfast- 
ness" on " soothfast," " rootfastness" — a good old word now 
let go — on "rootfast." To change this into " shame/to<#- 

* See Holland, Pliny's Natural History, vol. ii., pp. 37, 39, 40, and often. 

IT 



60 TRENCH ON A UTH VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

ness" is to allow all the meaning and force of the word to 
run to the surface, to leave it ethically a far inferior word, 
and marks an unfaithful guardianship of the text, both on 
their part who first introduced, and theirs who have so long- 
allowed the change. 



OX SO JIB QUESTIOXS OF TRAXSLATIOX, ETC. 61 



CHAPTER IV. 

ON SCXME QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION, AND THE ANSWERS 
TO THEil WHICH OUR TRANSLATORS GATE. 

I hate already touched in the second chapter, devoted ex- 
clusively to this subject, on various graver difficulties which 
lie in the path of the translator, some of which it is only 
given him at the best partially to overcome, others of which 
will wholly overcome him. But, besides these harder ques- 
tions, not to be solved, or to be solved only in part, there are 
others, themselves also oftentimes hard enough, which will 
offer themselves for his solution — which will meet him, so to 
speak, on the very threshold of his work. I propose in this 
chapter a little to consider what sort of answer our own 
translators have given to some of these questions, as they 
presented themselves to them. It need scarcely be observed 
that, wherever they acquiesced in and adopted the answers 
which their predecessors had given, they did by this course 
make these their own, and we have a right to regard them 
as responsible for such. 

Let us take, first, a question which in all translation is con- 
stantly recurring — this, namely : In what manner ought tech- 
nical words of the one language, which have no exact equiv- 
alents in the other, which indeed can not have, because the 
exact thing itself is not there, to be rendered ; measures, for 
instance, of wet and dry, as the (dutoq and Kopog of Luke xvi., 
6, 7 ; the /lETprjTyQ of John ii., 6 ; coins, such as the cicpaxfiov 
of Matt, xvii., 24 ; the cran/p of Matt, xvii., 27 ; the Zpaxf^'i of 
Luke xv., 8; titles of honor and authority w r hich have long 
since passed away, and to which, at best, only remote resem- 
blances now exist, as the ypafifiarevg and vewKopog of Acts xix., 
35 ; the 'Aaiapxat of the same chapter, ver. 31 ; the avdvira-oQ 
of Acts xiii., 7? 



62 TRENCH ON A JJTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

The ways in which such words may be dealt with reduce 
themselves to four, and our translators, by turns, have re- 
course to them all. The first, which is only possible when 
the etymology of the word shines clearly and transparently 
through it, is to seize this, and to set against the one word 
another, either adopted or newly coined, which shall utter 
over again in the language of the translation what the orig- 
inal word uttered in its own. It is thus, for instance, with 
Cicero's " indolentia," which he invented and set over against 
the aTradeia of the Stoics ; his " veriloquium," as against the 
Greek hvfioXoyla. This course was chosen when our trans- 
lators rendered "Apeiog nayog, "Mars Hill" (Acts xvii., 22), 
TE-pa%iov, " quaternion" (Acts xii., 4), Aidoarpwror, " the Pave- 
ment" (Johnxix., 13) ; when Sir John Cheke rendered harov- 
rapxog " hundreder" (Matt, viii., 5), (reXrjvia^ofiEvog " mooned" 
(Matt, iv., 24). But the number of words which allow of this 
reproduction is comparatively small. Of many the etymol- 
ogy is lost ; many others do not admit the formation of a 
corresponding word in another language. This scheme, there- 
fore, whatever advantages it may possess, can of necessity be 
very sparingly applied. 

Another method, then, is to choose some generic word, 
such as must needfc exist in both languages, the genus of 
which the word to be rendered is the species, and, without at- 
tempting any closer correspondence, to employ this. Our 
translators have frequently taken this course ; they have 
done so, rendering fiarog, tcopog, x°~ iyi ^ ™ T °>'> alike by " meas- 
ure" (Luke xvi., 6, 7 ; Rev. vi., 6 ; Matt, xiii., 33), with no en- 
deavors to mark in any of these places the capacity of the 
measure; ^pa^n by "piece of silver" (Luke xv., 8), arari'ip by 
"piece of money" (Matt, xvii., 27), not attempting in either 
case to designate the value of the coin ; avQvirarog by " depu- 
ty" (Acts xiii., 8), <rrpa-r)yoi by " magistrates" (Acts xvi., 22), 
XiXlapxog by " captain" (Rev. xix., 18), aiKapioi by " murderers" 
(Acts xxi., 38), fxdyoi by "wise men" (Matt, ii.,1). A mani- 
fest disadvantage which attends this course is the want in 



OX SOME QUESTIOXS OF TBAXSLATIOX, ETC. 53 

the copy of that definite distinctness which the original pos- 
sessed, a certain vagueness which is given ty the former, with 
the obliteration of all strongly marked lines. 

Or, thirdly, they may seek out some special word in the 
language into which the translation is being made which 
shall be more or less an approximative equivalent for that in 
whose place it stands. We have two not very happy illus- 
trations of this scheme in " town-clerk," as the rendering of 
ypa/jLfxarevg (Acts xix., 35), though doubtless the town-clerk in 
the sixteenth and seventeenth century was a very different 
and far more important personage than now ;* and " Easter" 
as that of Uuctxcl (Acts xii.,4). The turning of'Epp/e into 
"Mercurius" (Acts xiv.,12) is, in fact, another example of 
the same, although our translators themselves, no doubt, were 
unconscious of it, seeing that in their time the essential dis- 
tinction between the Greek and the Italian mythologies, and 
the fact that the names of the deities in the former were only 
adapted with more or less fitness to the deities of the latter, 
was unknown even to scholars. f This method of translating 
has its own serious drawback, that, although it often gives a 
distinct and vigorous, yet it runs the danger of conveying a 
more or less false, impression. Excej)t by a very singular 
felicity, and one which will not often occur, the word select- 
ed, while it conveys some truth, must also convey some error 
bound up with the truth. Thus Kohpav-rjg is not what we 
have rendered it, "a farthing" (Mark xii.,42), and aaaapiov 
(Matt, x., 29) as little ;J nor Srjvapiov "a penny" (Matt, xx., 2), 

* T. G., the author of some Notes and Observations upon some Passages of 
Scripture, Oxford, 1646, p. 42, would substitute " actuary" — scarcely an im- 
provement. He complains with justice (p. 45) that "a worshiper" is too fee- 
ble a rendering of vewicopog, Acts xix., 35, and would put " the sacrist" in its 
room; but, while much might be said in favor of" sacrist," Hammond also 
suggesting it, this is just that sort of word which our translators have every 
where sought to avoid. 

t Curiously enough, 'Epfirjc., one of the Roman Christians whom St. Paul 
salutes (Rom. xvi., 13), is also rendered "Mercurius" in Cranmer's and the 
Geneva Version. 

t How far our words fail to express not merely the actual, but the relative 



64 TRENCH ON A UTK VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

nor fiErprjryg " a firkin" (John ii., 6) ; not, I mean, our farthing, 
or penny, or firkin> So, too, if "piece of money" is a vague 
translation of (ipa^f] (Luke xv., 8),Wicliffe's "bezant" and 
Tyndale's " grote" involve absolute error. Add to this the 
danger that the coloring of one time and age may thus be 
substituted for that of another, of the modern world for the 
ancient, a tone heathen and profane for one sacred and Chris- 
tian ; as when Golding, in his translation of Ovid's Meta- 
morphosis, calls the Vestal Virgins " nuns ;" as when Holland, 
in his Livy and elsewhere, talks of " colonels," "wardens of 
the marches," renders constantly " Pontifex Maximus" by 
" archbishop," with much else of the like kind ; and it will be 
seen that the inconveniences attending this course are not 
small. 

There remains only one way more — to take the actual word 
of the original, and to transplant it unchanged, or at most 
with a slight change in the termination — " parce detortum" 
— into the other tongue, in the trust that time and use will, 
little by little, cause the strangeness of it to disappear, and 
its meaning gradually to be acquired even by the unlearned. 
Plutarch, in his Roman Lives, deals thus with many Latin 
words, as SiKrariop, Qovprityep, KcnreTuXiov ; so, too, our latest 
Greek historian, where others had spoken of "heavy-armed," 
of " targeteer," of " the leaders/^) of Greece," has preferred 
" hoplite," " peltast," " the hegemony of Greece." Our trans- 
lators have followed this course in respect of many Hebrew 
words in the Old Testament, as " Urim," " Thummim," " eph- 
od," "shekel," "cherub," "seraphim," "cor," "bath," "ephah;" 
and of some Greek in the New, as " tetrarch," " proselyte," 
" Paradise," " Pentecost," " Messias ;" or, by adopting these 
words from preceding translations, have acquiesced in the fit- 
ness of this course. At the same time they have felt the dan- 
values of the Greek and Roman moneys for which they stand, maybe seen in 
the fact that the aoadpiov is four times more valuable than the KodpdvTtjg, 
both being translated " farthing ;" and while our penny, farthing, mite, stand 
in the relation of 1, |, |, the drjvdpiov, dtrcrdpiov, and \itttov stand in that of 1, 



ON S02IE QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION, ETC. 35 

ger of this scheme. We have no such word as " scenopegia" 
(in the Rheims Version, John vii., 2) ; nor have we stuffed 
our version with " metretes," " assarion," " lepton," " sata," 
"choenix," "modius," "hemorrhage," and dozens more of the 
same kind, with which a recent translator, who designs his 
work as an " important contribution to practical religion," 
and also natters himself that he has " adopted a thoroughly 
modern style," has stuffed his. The disadvantage of this 
course evidently is, that in many cases the adopted word con- 
tinues always an exotic for the mass of the people : it never 
tells its own story to them, nor becomes, so to speak, trans- 
parent with its own meaning. And therefore, as I can not 
but think, the number of words of this kind which occur in 
Wicliffe's translation must have constituted a serious- draw- 
back to its popular character, while at the same time they 
testify strongly to the embarrassments which awaited the 
first breaker up of a new way. I refer to such words as " ar- 
chitriclyn" (John ii., 8), "prepucye" (Rom. ii., 25), "neome- 
nye" (Col. ii., 16), " apocalips" (Rev. i., 1), " diluvye" (2 Pet. 
ii.,5), and the like. 

It is impossible to adhere with a strict consistency to any 
one of these devices for representing the things of one con- 
dition of society by the words of another ; they must all in 
their turn be appealed to, even as they all will be found 
barely sufficient. Our translators have employed them all. 
Their inclination, as compared with others, is perhaps toward 
the second, the least ambitious, but at the same time the 
safest, of these courses. Once or twice they have chosen it 
when one of the other ways appears manifestly preferable, 
as in their rendering of avdvira-og by " deputy" (Acts xiii., 7, 
8, 12), "proconsul" being ready made to their hands, with 
Wicliffe's authority for its use. 

There is another question, doubtless a perplexing one, 
which our translators had to solve ; I confess that I much 
regret the solution at which they arrived. It was this. 
How should they deal with the Hebrew names of places and 



66 TRENCH ON AJJTR. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

of persons in the Old Testament which had gradually as- 
sumed a form somewhat different from their original on the 
lips of Greek-speaking Jews, and which appeared in these 
their later Hellenistic forms in the New Testament. Should 
they bring them back to their original shapes, or suffer them 
to stand in their later deflections ? Thus, meeting 'HXmg in 
the Greek text, should they render it "Elias" or "Elijah?" 
We all know the answer which for the most part they gave 
to this question ; but I am not the less deeply convinced 
that, for the purpose of keeping vivid and strong the rela- 
tions between the Old and New Testament in the minds of 
the great body of English hearers and readers of Scripture, 
they ought to have recurred to the Old Testament names, 
which are not merely the Hebrew, but also the English 
names, and which, therefore, had their right to a place in the 
English text ; that 'HXmg, for instance, should have been 
translated into that which is not merely its Hebrew, but also 
its English equivalent, " Elijah," and so with the others. 
They have acted so in respect of " Jerusalem ;" and, because 
they found 'lepocToXvjda very often in their Greek text, they 
did not, therefore, think it necessary to write " Hierosoly- 
ma." To measure how much we lose by the scheme which 
they have preferred, let us just seek to realize to ourselves 
the difference in the amount of awakened attention among a 
country congregation which Matt, xvii., 10 would arouse if it 
were read thus, "And his disciples asked him, saying, Why 
then say the Scribes that Elijah must first come ?" as com- 
pared with what it now is likely to create. Elijah is a per- 
son to them; the same who once raised the widow's son, 
who on Mount Carmel challenged and overcame alone the 
army of the prophets of Baal, who went up in a fire-chariot 
to heaven. Elias is for them but a name. 

As it is, we have a double nomenclature, and for the un- 
learned members of the Church a sufficiently perplexing one, 
for very many places and persons of the earlier Covenant. 
It would be curious to know how many of our people recog- 



ON SO JIB QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION, ETC. q>j 

nize the widow of" Zarephath" (1 Kings xvii., 9) in the wom- 
an of " Sarepta," spoken of by our Lord in the synagogue of 
Nazareth (Luke iv., 26). And then what confusion in respect 
of kings, and prophets, and others, many of them familiar 
enough if they had presented themselves in their own forms, 
but strange and unrecognized in their Hellenistic disguise ! 
Not' to speak of" Elijah" and " Elias," we have " Elisha" and 
"Eliseus" (Luke iv., 26) ; " Hosea" and " Osee" (Rom. ix., 25) ; 
"Isaiah" and "Esaias" (Matt, iii., 3) ; to which the Apocry- 
pha adds a third form, "Esay" (Ecclus. xlviii., 22) ; "Uzziah" 
and " Ozias"- (Matt, i., 9) ; " Abijah" and "Abia" (Matt, i., 7) ; 
"Kish"and " Cis" (Acts xiii.,21); " Hezekiah" and "Ezeki- 
as" (Matt.i., 10) ; "Terah" and "Thara" (Luke iii., 34) ; "Zech- 
ariah" and "Zacharias" (Matt, xxiii., 35) ; " Korah" and "Core" 
(this last commonly pronounced as a monosyllable in our na- 
tional schools), "Rahab" and "Rachab," "Peleg" and "Pha- 
leg," and (most unfortunate of all) " Joshua" and " Jesus." 

It is, indeed, hardly possible to exaggerate the confusion 
of which the " Jesus" of Heb. iv., 8 must be the occasion to 
the great body of unlearned English readers and hearers, not 
to speak of a slight perplexity arising from the same cause 
at Acts vii., 45. The fourth chapter of the Hebrews is any- 
how hard enough ; it is only with strained attention that we 
follow the apostle's argument. But when to its own diffi- 
culty is added for many the confusion arising from the fact 
that "Jesus" is here used,' not of him whose name is above 
every name, but of the son of Nun, known every where in 
the Old Testament by the name of " Joshua," the perplexity 
to many becomes hopeless. It is in vain that our translators 
have added in the margin, " that is, Joshua ;" for all practi- 
cal purposes of excluding misconception, the note, in most of 
our Bibles omitted, is useless. In putting " Jesus" here they 
have departed from most of our preceding versions, and from 
many foreign. Even if they had counted that the letter of 
their obligation as translators, which yet I can not think, 
bound them to this, one would willingly have here seen a 



6 8 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION # OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

breach of the letter, that so they might better have kept the 
spirit. 

There is another difficulty, entailing, however, no such se- 
rious consequences, even if the best way of meeting it is not 
chosen : how, namely, to deal with Greek and Latin proper 
names ? whether to make them in their terminations English, 
or to leave them as we find them ? Our translators in this 
matter adhere to no constant rule. It is not merely that 
some proper names drop their classical terminations, as 
" Paul," and " Saul," and " Urban" (Rom. xvi., 9),* while oth- 
ers, as " Silvan us," which by the same rule should be " Sil- 
van," and " Mercurius," retain it. This inconsistency is prev- 
alent in all books which have to do with classical antiquity. 
There is almost no Roman history in which " Pompey" and 
" Antony" do not stand side by side with " Augustus" and 
"Tiberius." Merivale's, who also writes "Pompeius" and 
" Antonius," is almost the only exception which I know. If 
this were all, there would be little to find fault with in an ir- 
regularity almost, if not quite, universal, and in some cases 
hardly to be avoided without so much violence done to usage 
as might leave it doubtful whether the gain exceeded the 
loss.f But in our version the same name occurs with a 
Greek or Latin ending, now with an English, as though it 
were now "Pompeius" and now "Pompey," now "Antonius" 
and now "Antony," in the same volume, or even the same 
page, of some Roman history ; and the fault extends to He- 
brew names as well. Consistency in such details is avowed- 
ly difficult, and the difficulty of attaining it must have been 
much enhanced by the many hands that were engaged in 
our version. But it is strange that not only in different 
parts of the New Testament, which proceeded from different 

* So it ought to be printed in our modern Bibles, not " Urbane," which is 
now deceptive, though it was not so according to the orthography of 1611 ; 
it suggests a trisyllable, and the termination of a female name. It is Ovpfia- 
vov in the original. 

f See an article with the title Orthographic Mutineers, in the Miscella- 
neous Essays of De Quincey. 



OX SOME QUESTIOXS OF TRANSLATION, ETC. 69 

hands,* we have now "Marcus" (Col. iv., 10; Philem.24; 1 
Pet. v., 13) and now "Mark" (Acts xii., 12, 25 ; 2 Tim. iv., 11) ; 
now " Lucas" (postscript to 2 Cor.) and now " Luke" (2 Tim. 
iv., 11) ; now " Jeremias" (Matt, xvi., 14) and now "Jeremy" 
(Matt, ii.,1'7) ; now "Apollos" (Acts xviii., 24; xix., l), now 
"Apollo"f (1 Cor. iii,, 22; iv., 6); now " Noe" (Matt, xxiv., 
38) and now "Noah" (1 Pet. iii., 20) ; now "Simon, son of 
Jonas" (John xxi., 15, 16, 1*7), and now "Simon, son of 
Jona" (John i., 42) ; now "Judas" (Matt, i.,2) and now " Juda" 
(Luke iii., 33; Heb. vii., 14) : this in respect of the patriarch 
of this name, while the apostle is now "Judas" (Acts i., 13) 
and now " Jude" (Jude 1) ; now " Timotheus" (Acts xvi., 1) 
and now "Timothy" (Heb. xiii., 21) ; but in the same chapter 
we have Ti/aodeog rendered first " Timothy" (2 Cor. i., 1) and 
then "Timotheus" (ib., ver. 19). In like manner we" have 
" Corinthus" in one place (postscript to the Ep. to the Ro- 
mans) and "Corinth" elsewhere; "Sodoma" (Rom. xix., 29) 
and " Sodom" (Matt, x., 15 ; Jude 7) ; while the inhabitants 
of Crete (Kprjreg) are now "Cretes" (Acts ii., 11), which can 
not be right, and now " Cretians" (Tit. i., 12) ; " Cretans" is a 
form preferable to both. 

There are other inconsistencies in the manner of dealing 
with proper names. Thus "Apeioe Trayoc is " Areopagus" at 
Acts xvii., 19, while three verses farther on it is "Mars Hill." 
In which of these ways it ought to have been translated may 
very fairly be a question ; the subsequent mention of " Dio- 
nysius the Areopagitd' (ver. 34) may perhaps give a prefer- 
ence to the former rendering ; but one rendering or the oth- 
er, once chosen, should have been adhered to. Then, again, 
if our translators gave, as they properly did, the Latin termi- 
nation to the names of cities, "Ephesz^s," "Miletws," not 
" Ephesos," " Miletos," they should have done this through- 

* In the same way it is " Tyrus" throughout Jeremiah (xxvi. , 2), and 
"Tyre" throughout Isaiah (xxiii., 5). 

t This latter form, manifestly inconvenient, as confounding the name of 
an eminent Christian teacher with that of a heathen deity, has been, as al- 
ready remarked, tacitly removed from later editions of our Bible. 



70 TEENCH OF A TJTH. VEESION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

out, arid written "Assies" (Acts xx., 13, 14) and "Pergamws" 
(Rev. i., 11 ; ii., 12), not " Assos" and " Pergamos." In regard 
of this last, it would have been better still if they had em- 
ployed the form " Pergamwm /" for 3 while no doubt there 
are examples of the feminine UipyajioQ in Greek authors,* they 
are excessively rare, and the city's name is almost always 
written JUpya/jiov in Greek, and "Pergamuni" in Latin.f A 
singular error, exactly reversing this one, the use of " Mile- 
tu7n" at 2 Tim. iv., 20, has been often noted; an error into 
which our translators would probably not have fallen them- 
selves, but have inherited it from the versions preceding, all 
which have it. Yet it is strange that they did not correct 
it here, seeing that it, or a similar error, " Miletow," had, at 
Acts xx., 15, 17, been by them discovered and removed, and 
the city's name rightly given, " Miletus ;" although in the 
heading even of this chapter also they have suffered " Mile- 
turn" to stand.J 

It is the carrying of one rule through which we desire in 
these matters, and this is not seldom exactly what we miss. 
Thus, seeing that in the enumeration of the precious stones 
which constitute the foundations of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 
xxi.,19, 20), all save two, which are capable of receiving an 

* Ptol. , v. ii. ; comp. Lobeck, Phrynichus, p. 422. 

t Xenophon, Anab., yii., 8, 8 ; Strabo, xiii., 4 ; Pliny, H. N. , xxxv. , 46. 

4 At the same time, it is very possible that "Miletum" was originally no 
error. In early English, as very often in German at the present day, Latin 
and Greek words are declined, and given the termination of that case in 
which they would appear, supposing the whole sentence to have been com- 
posed in one of these languages. Thus, in Wicliffe's Version (Rom. xvi. , 1 2), 
" Greete well Trifenam and Trifosam." Again, in the Geneva (Acts xxvii., 
7), " We scarce were come over against Gnidum ;" in Tyndale (Acts ix., 3), 
"desired of him letters to Damasco." So, too, in Capgrave's Chronicle, p. 
85 : " He held the grete Councille of Chalcidony ageyn Euticem the heretik." 
Nor has this usage wholly passed away. In Kingsley's very noble poem of 
Perseus and Andromeda, they appear, once at least, as "Persea" and "An- 
dromeden." I can not, however, think that this allowing the proper names 
which we use to assert the rights of their own grammar against those of the 
English has any such merits that it should be reintroduced among us. In an 
English sentence they must learn to accommodate themselves to English 
ways. 



ON SOME QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION, ETC. 71 

English termination, do receive it — thus, "beryl" and not 
"beryllus," "chrysolite"* and not " chrysolitlms," "jacinth" 
and not "jacinthus" — we might fairly ask that these two, 
" chrysoprasus" and " sardius," should not be exceptionally 
treated. It should therefore be " chrysoprase," and not " chry- 
soprasus." " Sardius" may be objected to for a farther rea- 
son. Iiapdiov, not capSioQ, is the Greek name of this stone, as 
"sarda" is the Latin; and crapSwg here is an adjective (sar- 
dius lapis, Tertullian), quite as much as aapcivoQ at Rev. iv., 3, 
Xldog, which is there expressed, being here understood. It 
would have been, therefore, more correct to translate " a sar- 
dine stone" here, as has been done there. Two other ways, 
indeed, lay before our translators. " Sard" has been natural- 
ized in English ; it is used in Holland's Pliny ; and they 
might have adopted this ; or, best of all, as it seems to me, 
they might have boldly ventured upon " ruby," which in all 
likelihood this stone was, and which otherwise we miss in the 
present enumeration of precious stones, though it is very un- 
likely that a stone so prized should be absent here. " Sar- 
dius," w T hich they have employed, seems anyhow incorrect, 
though the Vulgate may be quoted in its favor. 

Hammond affirms, and I must needs consider with reason, 
that " Tres Tabernse" should have been left in its Latin form 
(Acts xxviii., 15), and not rendered "The Three Taverns." 
It is a proper name, just as much as " Appii Forum," which 
occurs in the same verse, and which rightly we have not re- 
solved into " The Market of Appius." Had we left " Tres 
Tabernse" untouched (I observe De Wette does so), we should 
then have only dealt as the sacred historian has himself 
dealt with it, who has merely written it in Greek letters, not 
turned it into equivalent Greek words. As little should we 
have turned it into English. 

Sometimes our translators have carried too far, as I can 
not but think, the turning ofxpmlitative genitives into adjec- 

* Misspelt "chrysolite," and the etymology obscured, in nearly all our 
modern editions, but correctly given in the exemplar edition of 1611. 



72 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

tives. Oftentimes it is prudently done, and with a due rec- 
ognition of the Hebrew idiom which has moulded and mod- 
ified the Greek phrase with which they have to deal. Thus 
" forgetful hearer" is unquestionably better than " hearer of 
forgetfulness" (James i.,25); "his natural face" than "face 
of his nature" or " of his generation" (ib.) ; " unjust steward" 
than " steward of injustice" (Luke xvi., 8). Yet at other 
times they have done this without necessity, and occasional- 
ly with manifest loss. " Deceitful lusts" is a very unsatis- 
factory substitute for " lusts of deceit" (Eph. iv., 22). " Son 
of his love," which the Rheims Version has, would have been 
better than "beloved son"* (Col. L, 13) ; " the Gospel of the 
glory" than "the glorious Gospel" (l Tim. i., 11) ; and cer- 
tainly " the body of our vileness," or " of our humiliation," 
better than "our vile body;" "the body of his glory" than 
"his glorious body" (Phil, iii., 21). " The uncertainty of rich- 
es," as it is in the Kheinis, would be more accurate than " un- 
certain riches" (1 Tim. vi., 17) ; "appearing of the glory," as 
in the Geneva, than " glorious appearing" (Tit. ii., 13) ; " chil- 
dren of the curse" than "cursed children" (2 Pet. ii., 14) ; in 
which last case it has been forgotten that there was a second 
Hebraism, that, namely, inherent in " children," to deal with.f 
Okovojila Qeov can never mean "godly edifying" (l Tim. i., 
4). " The glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom. viii., 
21) not merely comes short of, but expresses something very 
different from, " the liberty of the glory of the children of 
God" (see Alford, in loco). Doubtless the accumulated gen- 
itives are in this last place awkward to deal with : it was 
probably to avoid them that the translation assumed its pres- 
ent shape; but still, when higher interests are at stake, such 
awkwardness must be endured, and elsewhere our translators 
have not shrunk from it, as at Rev. xvi., 19 : "The cup of the 
wine of the fierceness of his wrath." 

* Augustine (De Trin., xv., 19) lays a dogmatic stress on the genitive 
(" Filius caritatis ejus nullus est alius, quam qui de substantia Ejus est geni- 
tus"), but this may be questioned. 

f See some good observations on this phrase in Scholefield's Hints, in loco, 
p. 159. 



ON SOME QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION, ETC. 73 

Calvary is a word so consecrated for us that one is almost 
unwilling to urge that it has no right to a place in our Bi- 
bles ; and yet it certainly has none, and we owe to the Vul- 
gate, or rather to the influence of Latin Christianity, that we 
find it there : " When they were come to the place which is 
called Calvary, there they crucified him" (Luke xxiii., 33). 
But this Kpaviov ought either to be dealt with as a proper 
name, in which case " Cranium" would be the right rendering, 
or else translated, in which case "A Skull," not " the place of 
a skull," as in the margin here, this being drawn from Matt, 
xxvii., 33. In no case can recourse be had rightly to the 
Latin ; or a Latin name, and one which did not, as applied 
to this place, exist till many centuries after, be properly em- 
ployed. The same reasons which made " Calvaria" (being 
the name for a skull in the silver age of Latinity) appropriate 
in' the Latin translation, make "Calvary" inappropriate in 
ours. At the same time, I would much rather lie under the 
charge of inconsequence than suggest that it should be now 
disturbed. 



74 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 



CHAPTER V. 

ON SOME UNNECESSARY DISTINCTIONS INTRODUCED. 

It may be well, before entering on this subject, to make 
one remark, which, having an especial reference to the sub- 
ject-matter of this and the following chapter, more or less 
bears upon all. I have already observed that the advantages 
were great of coming, as our translators did, in the rear of 
other translators ; of inheriting from those who went before 
them so large an amount of work well done, of successful 
renderings, of phrases consecrated already by long usage in 
the Church. It was a signal gain that they had not, in the 
fabric which they were constructing, to make a new frame- 
work throughout, but needed only here and there to insert 
new materials where the old from any cause were faulty or 
out of date ; that of them it was not demanded that they 
should make a translation where none existed before ; nor 
yet, as they have remarked themselves, that they should 
bring a good translation out of bad or indifferent ones; but 
only a best, and that out of many good ones preceding. 
None who have ever been engaged in the task of transfer- 
ring from one language to another but will freely acknowl- 
edge that in this their gain was most real, and they well un- 
derstood how to turn these advantages to account. 

Yet, vast as these doubtless were, they were not without 
certain accompanying drawbacks. He who revises, above 
all when he addresses himself to the task of revision with a 
confidence, here abundantly justified, in the general excel- 
lency of that which he is revising, is in constant danger of 
allowing his vigilance to sleep, and of thus passing over er- 
rors which he would not himself have originated had he been 
thrown altogether on his own resources. I can not but think 



ON SOME UNNECESSAB Y DISTINCTIONS INTM OB UCED. 7 5 

that in this way the watchfulness of our translators, or re- 
visers rather, has been sometimes remitted, and that errors 
and inconsistencies which they would not themselves have 
introduced, they have yet passed by and allowed. A large 
proportion of the faults in our translation are thus an inher- 
itance from former versions. This is not, indeed, any excuse ; 
for they who, with full power to remove, passed them by, be- 
came responsible for them ; but is merely mentioned as the 
probable explanation of many among them. With this much 
of introduction, I will pass on to the proper subject of this 
chapter. 

Our translators sometimes create distinctions which have 
no counterparts in their original by using two or more words 
to render at different places, or, it may be, at the same ]:>lace, 
a single word in the Greek text.* 

After what has been urged in a preceding chapter, it will 
be readily understood that we by no means make a general 
complaint against them that they have varied their words 
when there is no variation in the original. Oftentimes this 
was inevitable, or, if not inevitable, was certainly the more 
excellent way. What we do complain of is that they have 
done this where it was wholly gratuitous, and sometimes 
where the force, clearness, and precision of the original have 
consequently suffered not a little^ It is true that what they 
did here they did more or less with their eyes open, and not 
altogether of oversight ; and it will be only fair to hear what 
they, in an Address to the Reader, now seldom or never re- 
printed, but, on many accounts, well worthy of being so,f say 

* Hugh Broughton has some good remarks on this subject, Works, 1662, 
p. 702. 

f Their " pedantic and uncouth preface" Symonds calls it. There would 
certainly be pedantry in any one now writing with such richness and fullness 
of learned allusion, a pedantry from which our comparatively scanty stores 
of classical and ecclesiastical learning would in most cases effectually preserve 
us. But this preface is, on many grounds, a most interesting study, chiefly, 
indeed, as giving at considerable length, and in various aspects, the view of 
our translators themselves in regard of the work which they had undertaken ; 
while, "uncouth" as this objector calls it, every true knower of our language 

X 



76 TEENCH ON AUTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

upon this matter, and how they defend the course which they 
have adopted. These are their words : " Another thing we 
think good to admonish thee of (gentle reader), that we have 
not tied ourselves to a uniformity of phrasing, or to an iden- 
tity of words, as some peradventure would wish that we had 
done, because they observe that some learned men some- 
will acknowledge it a masterpiece of English composition. Certainly it would 
not be easy to find a more beautiful or more affecting piece of writing than 
the twenty or thirty lines with which the fourth paragraph, " On the praise 
of the Holy Scriptures" concludes. And this much I will quote of it for its 
own sake, and in the hope that I may thus assist a little in drawing this pref- 
ace from the obscurity and forgetfulness into which it has been so strangely 
allowed to fall : " Men talk much of eipsmiovn, how many sweet and goodly 
things it had hanging on it ; of the Philosopher's stone, that it turneth cop- 
per into gold : of Cornu-copia, that it had all things necessary for food in it ; 
of Panaces the herb, that it was good for all diseases ; of Catholicon the drug, 
that it is instead of all purges ; of Vulcan's Armor, that it was an armor of 
proof against all thrusts, and all blows, etc. "Well, that which they falsely cr 
vainly attributed to these things for bodily good, we may justly and with full 
measure ascribe unto the Scripture for spiritual. It is not only an armor, 
but also a whole armory of weapons, both offensive and defensive, whereby 
we may save ourselves and put the enemy to flight. It is not an herb, but a 
tree, or rather a whole paradise of trees of life, which bring forth fruit every 
month, and the fruit thereof is for meat, and the leaves for medicine. , It is 
not a pot of manna or a cruse of oil, which were for memory only, or for a 
meal's meat or two, but as it were a shower of heavenly bread sufficient for a 
whole host, be it never so great, and as it were a whole cellar full of oil-ves- 
sels, whereby all our necessities may be provided for, and our debts dis- 
charged. In a word, it is a Panary of \vholesome food against fenowed tra- 
ditions ; a Physician's shop (St. Basil calleth it) of preservatives against poi- 
soned heresies j a Pandect of profitable laws against rebellious spirits ; a 
treasure of most costly jewels against beggarly rudiments ; finally, a fountain 
of most pure water springing up unto everlasting life. And what marvel ? 
the original thereof being from heaven, not from earth ; the Author being 
God, not man ; the Enditer, the Holy Spirit, not the wit of the apostles or 
prophets ; the penmen such as were sanctified from the womb, and endued 
with a principal portion of God's Spirit ; the matter, verity, piety, purity, up- 
rightness : the form, God's Word, God's testimony, God's oracles, the word 
of truth, the word of salvation, etc. ; the effects, light of understanding, sta- 
bleness of persuasion, repentance from dead works, newness of life, holiness, 
peace, joy in the Holy Ghost ; lastly, the end and reward of the study there- 
of, fellowship with the saints, participation of the heavenly nature, fruition of 
an inheritance immortal, undefiled, and that never shall fade away : Happy 
is the man that delighteth in the Scripture, and thrice happy that meditateth 
in it day and night." 



ON SOME UNNECESSAR Y DISTINCTIONS IN TROD UCED. 7 7 

where have been as exact as they could that way. Truly, 
that we might not vary from the sense of that which we had 
translated before, if the word signified the same in both places 
(for there be some words be not of the same sense every 
where), we were especially careful, and made a conscience 
according to our duty. But that we should express the 
same notion in the same particular word ; as, for example, if 
we translate the Hebrew or Greek word once by purpose, 
never to call it intent ; if one where journeying, never travel- 
ing ; if one where think, never suppose; if one where pain, 
never ache ; if one where jog, never gladness, etc., thus to 
mince the matter, we thought to savor more of curiosity than 
wisdom, and that rather it would breed scorn in the atheist 
than bring profit to the godly reader. For is the kingdom 
of God become words or syllables ? why should we be in 
bondage to them if we may be free ; use one precisely, when 
we may use another no less fit as commodiously ? "We might 
also be charged (by scoffers) with some unequal dealing to- 
ward a great number of good English words. For as it is 
written of a certain great philosopher that he should say that 
those logs were happy that were made images to be worship- 
ed; for their fellows, as good as they, lay for blocks behind 
the fire ; so if we should say, as it were, unto certain words, 
Stand up higher ; have a place in the Bible always ; and to 
others of like quality, Get ye hence ; be banished forever ; we 
might be taxed peradventure with St. James's words, namely, 
'To be partial in ourselves and judges of evil thoughts." 5 

Such is their explanation — to me, I confess, an insufficient 
one, whatever ingenuity may be ascribed to it ; and for these 
reasons insufficient. It is clearly the office of translators to 
put the reader of the translation, as nearly as may be, on the 
same vantage-ground as the reader of the original ; to give 
him, so far as this is attainable, the same assistances for un- 
derstanding his author's meaning. Now every exact and la- 
borious student of the Greek Testament knows that there is 
almost no such help in some passage of. difficulty, doctrinal 



78 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

or other, as to turn to his Greek Concordance, to search out 
every other passage in which the word or words wherein the 
difficulty seems chiefly to reside, occur, and closely to observe 
their usage there. It is manifestly desirable that the reader 
of the English Bible should have, as nearly as possible, the 
same resource. But if, where there is one and the same word 
in the original, there are two, three, half a dozen in the ver- 
sion, he is in the main deprived of it. Thus he hears the doc- 
trine of the atonement discussed ; he would fain turn to all 
the passages where "atonement" occurs; he finds only one 
(Rom. v., 11), and, of course, is unaware that in other passages 
where he meets " reconciling" and " reconciliation" (Rom. xi., 
15 ; 2 Cor. v., 18, 19) it is the same word in the original. In 
words like this, which are, so to speak, sedes doctrince, one re- 
grets, above all, variation and uncertainty in rendering. 

I confess that I would fain see more even than this — not 
merely that each word in one language should have its fixed 
and recognized equivalent in the other, not to be exchanged 
for any other unless on the clearest necessity and in excep- 
tional cases ; but it would be further desirable that where 
words had budded, and other words grown out of them — Kupi- 
6tt]q, for example, out of Kvpiog — in such a case, if Kvptog had 
been rendered " lord," then Kvpwrrjg should be " lordship," and 
not " dominion ;" that if SIkciioq is " righteous," liKaioervvq shall 
be "righteousness" — if, on the other hand, ZLkclioq is "just," 
then let diKaioavvrj be "justice ;" that, in fact, not merely word 
should answer word, but family should correspond to family. 
It is much, indeed, that we here demand, and we only de- 
mand it as an ideal toward which the nearest attainable ap- 
proach should be made, being, as it is, probably far more than 
any language could render, certainly far more than our own. 
A circumstance which, in many aspects, constitutes our rich- 
es, namely, that the English language has two factors, a Pe- 
lasgic and a Gothic, and that thus we have often duplicate 
words where other languages — the German, for example — 
have but a single one, as "just" and "justice" side by side 



ON SOME UNNECESSAR T DISTINCTIONS INTR OB UCED. fj 9 

with " righteous" and " righteousness," or, still more remark- 
ably, " saint," " saintly," " sanctify," " sanctification," " sanc- 
tity," over against " holy one," " holy," " hallow," " hallow- 
ing," " holiness :" this circumstance, in some of the conse- 
quences which have followed from it, works often injuriously 
so far as the fulfilling our present demand is concerned. The 
consequences I refer to are these, namely, that, as continual- 
ly will happen, neither group is complete, some words having 
dropped out from each, and only between them and by their 
joint contributions the whole body of needful words is made 
up. For instance, our translators use often " righteous" for 
Skatog, and always, I believe, " righteousness" for SiKaioo-vvr). 
But they have presently to deal with c^cudw and cWcuWtc. 
There are gaps here in our Saxon group ; no help to be found 
in that quarter — no choice, therefore, but to take up with the 
Latin, "to justify," and "justification," and this, moreover, 
with the certainty that the etymology of " justificare," the 
word which they were compelled to use ("justum facere"), 
would be turned against that truth which they most loved to 
assert, and which dttccuovv did itself so plainly declare. Then, 
too, while TTiffTtg is " faith," and tthttoq " faithful," when we 
reach -Kiarzveiv there is no proceeding further in this line : we 
betake ourselves perforce to " believe," a w r ord excellent in 
itself, but with the serious drawback that it belongs to quite 
another family, and stands in no connection with " faith" and 
" faithful" at all. Observe, for example, how through this the 
loop and link connecting the great eleventh chapter of the 
Hebrews with the last verse of the chapter preceding has 
been dropped in our version, and the most natural transition 
obscured. 

But, without pressing this farther, and returning to the 
main proposition of this chapter, which is, that a Greek word 
should have, so far as possible, its fixed and unchanged rep- 
resentative in English, the losses which ensue from the neg- 
lect or the non-recognition of this rule may be shown to be 
considerable. Thus it will sometimes happen that when St. 



8 TRENCH ON A TJTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

Paul is pursuing a close train of reasoning, and one which de- 
mands severest attention, the difficulties of his argument, not 
small in themselves, are aggravated by the use on the trans- 
lators' part of different words where he has used the same, 
the word being sometimes the very key to the whole argu- 
ment. It is thus in the fourth chapter of the Romans. Ao- 
yl^ofxai occurs eleven times in this chapter. We may say 
that it is the key-word to St. Paul's argument throughout, be- 
ing every where employed most strictly in the same, and that 
a technical and theological, sense. But our translators have 
no fixed rule of rendering it. Twice they render it " count" 
(ver. 3, 5) ; six times " impute" (ver. 6, 8, 11, 22, 23, 24) ; and 
three times "reckon" (ver. 4, 9, 10) ; while at Gal. iii., 6 they 
introduce a fourth rendering, " account." Let the student 
read this chapter, employing every where "reckon," or, which 
would be better, every where " impute," and observe how 
much of clearness and precision St. Paul's argument would in 
this way acquire. 

In other places no doctrine is in danger of being obscured, 
but still the change is uncalled for and sometimes perplex- 
ing. Thus what confusion arises from turning ajjvcraos, which 
in the Revelation is always translated " the bottomless pit" 
(ix.,1, 2,11, and often), into "the deep" (Luke viii., 31); above 
all, when this " deep," which it needs not to say is the <j>v\ai:{] 
— that forlorn province of the Hades-world which is the re- 
ceptacle of lost spirits— is so liable, as it is here, to be con- 
founded with " the lake" (" the sea," Matt, viii., 32), men- 
tioned immediately after. 

Or in other ways the variation is injurious. Take, for in- 
stance, Rev. i v., 4 : "And round about the throne (dpovov) 
were four-'and-twenty seats" (Bpovoi). It is easy to see the 
motive of this variation ; and yet, if the inspired apostle was 
visited with no misgivings lest the creature should seem to 
be encroaching on the dignity of the Creator, and it is clear 
that he was not — on the contrary, he has, in the most marked 
manner, brought the throne of God and the thrones of the 



ON SOME UXXECESSAR Y DISTIXCTIOXS IXTB OB UCED. 8 1 

ciders together — certainly the translators need not have been 
more careful than he had been, nor made the elders to sit on 
" seats," and only God on a " throne." This august company 
of the four-and-twenty elders represents the Church of the 
Old and the Xew Testament, each in its twelve heads ; but 
how much is lost by turning their " thrones" into " seats ;" 
for example, the connection of this Scripture with Matt, xix., 
28, and with all the promises that Christ's servants should 
not merely see his glory, but share it, that they should be 
avvQpovoi with him (Rev. iii., 21), this little change obscuring 
the truth that they are here set before us as uv^aaiXevovTEQ 
(1 Cor. iv., 8; 2 Tim. ii., 12), as kings reigning with him. 
This truth is saved, indeed, by the mention of the golden 
crowns on their heads, but is implied also in their sitting, as 
they do in the Greek, but not in the English, on seats of equal 
dignity with his, on "thrones." The same scruple which dic- 
tated this change makes itself felt through the whole transla- 
tion of the Apocalypse, and to a manifest loss. In that book 
is set forth, as nowhere else in Scripture, the hellish parody 
of the heavenly kingdom ; the conflict between the true King 
of the earth and the usurping king ; the loss, therefore, is evi- 
dent when for " Satan's throne" is substituted " Satan's seat" 
(ii., 13) ; for " the throne of the beast," " the seat of the beast" 
(xvi. 10). 

A great master of language will often implicitly refer in 
some word which he uses to the same word, or, it may be, to 
another of the same group or family, which he or some one 
else has just used before; and where there is evidently in- 
tended such an allusion, it should, wherever this is possible, 
be reproduced in the translation. There are two examples 
of this in St. Paul's discourse at Athens, both of which have 
been effaced in our version. Of those who encountered Paul 
in the market at Athens, some said, " He seemeth to be a set- 
ter forth of strange gods" (Acts xvii., 18). They use the 
word KcirayyeXevc ; and he, remembering and taking up this 
word, retorts it upon them : " Whom, therefore, ye ignorant- 



82 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

ly worship, him declare I unto you" (ver. 23) ; so our trans- 
lators ; but better, " Him set I forth (tcaTayyiWio) unto you." 
He has their charge present in his mind, and this is his an- 
swer to their charge. It would more plainly appear such to 
the English reader if the translators, having used " setter 
forth" before, had thus returned upon the word, instead of 
substituting, as they have done, " declare" for it. The Rheims 
Version, which has " preacher" and "preach," after "annun- 
tiator" and " annuntio" of the Vulgate, has been careful to re- 
tain and indicate the connection. 

But the finer and more delicate turns of the divine rhetoric 
of St. Paul are more seriously affected by another oversight 
in the same verse. "We make him there say, " As I passed 
by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this in- 
scription, To the Unknown God (ayvworw 0ew). Whom, there- 
fore, ye ignorantly (ayvoovvreg) worship, him declare I unto 
you." But if any thing is clear, it is that St. Paul in ayvoovv- 
teq intends to take up the preceding ayvuHrra); the chime of 
the words, and also, probably, the fact of their etymological 
connection, leading him to this. He has spoken of their altar 
to an " Unknovm God," and he proceeds, " whom, therefore, 
ye worship unknowing, him declare I unto you." " Igno- 
rantly" has the further objection that it conveys more of re- 
buke than St. Paul, who is sparing his hearers to the utter- 
most, intended. 

In other passages, also, the point of a sentence lies in the 
recurrence and repetition of the same word, which yet they 
have failed to repeat, as in these which follow : 

1 Cor. iii., 17.— "If any man defile (<p6elp£i) the temple of 
God, him shall God destroy (<pdepei)." It is the fearful law of 
retaliation which is here proclaimed. He who ruins shall 
himself be ruined in turn. It shall be done to him as he has 
done to the temple of God. Undoubtedly it is hard to get 
the right word which will suit in both places. " Corrupt" 
is the first which suggests itself; yet it would not do to say, 
" If any man corrupt the temple of God, him shall God cor- 



ON SOME TTNNECESSAR Y DISTINCTIONS INTR OD UCED. g 3 

rupt." The difficulty which our translators felt, it is evident 
that the Yulgate felt the same, which in like manner has 
changed its word : " Si quis autem templum Dei violaverit, 
disperdet ilium Deus." Yet why should not the verse be ren- 
dered, " If any man destroy the temple of God, him shall God 
destroy ?" 

Matt, xxi., 41. — "He will miserably destroy those wicked 
men." A difficulty of exactly the same kind exists here, 
where yet the kclkovq Katcug of the original ought, in some way 
or other, to have been preserved, as in this way it might very 
sufficiently be : " He will miserably destroy those miserable 
men;" their doom shall correspond to their condition; as 
this is, so shall be that. Neither would it have been hard at 
2 Thess. i., 6, to retain the play upon words, and to have ren- 
dered tolq OXlpovaiv ufiag OXlxptp, " affliction to them that afflict 
you," instead of '" tribulation to them that trouble you," there 
being no connection in English between the words " tribula- 
tion" and " trouble," though some likeness in sound ; while 
yet the very purpose of the passage is to show that what 
wicked men have measured to others shall be measured to 
them again. 

Let me indicate other examples of the same kind where 
the loss is manifest. Who can doubt that the iKavioaev of 2 
Cor. iii., 6 is an echo of lizavoi and iKavortjg of the verse pre- 
ceding ? With the assistance of " able" and " ability," or 
" ableness," as Tyndale has it, or else with " sufficient" and 
" sufficiency," it would have been easy to let this echo be 
heard in the English no less than in the Greek. Again, if at 
Gal. iii., 22, avvUXeiatv is translated "hath concluded," ovy- 
KXewfjiEvoi in the next verse, which takes it up, should not be 
rendered " shut up." The Vulgate has well " conclusit" and 
" conclusi." Let the reader substitute " hath shut up" for 
"hath concluded" in ver. 22, and then read the passage. He 
will be at once aware of the gain. In like manner, let him 
take Rom. vii., 7, and read, "I had not known lust (e7n6vfiiav) 
except the law had said, Thou shalt not lust (ov/c eTu^^o-a?) ;" 



84 TRENCH ON AUTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

or Phil, ii., 13, "It is God which worketh (6 ivepy&v) in you 
both to will and to work (to Ivepyeiv)" and the passages will 
come out with a strength and clearness which they have not 
now. Not otherwise, if at 2 Thess. ii., 6, to kcltex™ * s ren ~ 
dered"what withholdeth" 6 icare^uv, in the verse following, 
should not be " he who letteth" While, undoubtedly, there 
is significance in the impersonal t'6 kcltexov exchanged for the 
personal 6 kutex^v, there can be no doubt that they refer to 
one and the same person or institution ; but this is obscured 
by the change of word. In like manner, one would have glad- 
ly seen the connection between Xenrofxevoi and XaVerai at Jam. 
i., 4, 5, reproduced in our version. " Lacking" and " lack," 
which our previous versions had, would have done it. The 
"patience and comfort of the Scriptures" (Rom. xv., 4) is de- 
rived from " the God of patience and comfort (ver. 5) ; for 
so one willingly would have read it ; and not " consolation," 
as it now in this latter verse stands, causing a slight obscura- 
tion of the connection between the " comfort" and God, the 
Author of the " comfort." Our version at 2 Cor. i., 3-7 veers 
in the same way needlessly backward and forward, rendering 
7rapaK\r](Tig four times by " consolation," and twice by " com- 
fort." 

How many readers have read in the English the third 
chapter of St. John, and missed the remarkable connection 
between our Lord's words at ver. 11, and the Baptist's tak- 
ing up of those words at ver. 32; and this because jiapTvpia 
is translated " witness" on the former occasion, and " testi- 
mony" on the latter. Why, again, we may ask, should v(3ptg 
Kal Zrjfxla be "hurt and damage" at Acts xxvii., 10, and "harm 
and loss" at their recurrence, ver. 21 ? Both versions are 
good, and it would not much import which had been select- 
ed ; but whichever had been employed on the first occasion 
ought also to have been employed on the second. St. Paul, 
repeating in the midst of the danger the very words which 
he had used when counseling his fellow voyagers how they 
might avoid that danger, would remind them, that so he 



OX SOME UXXECESSAB T DISTIXCTIOXS IXTROD UCED. g5 

might obtain a readier hearing now, of that neglected warn- 
ing of his, which the sequel had only justified too well. 

Of these and some other examples in the like kind which 
I shall offer before leaving this part of the subject, some are 
so little significant that they might well be passed by, if any 
thing could be counted wholly insignificant which helps or 
hinders ever so little the more exact setting forth of the 
Word of God. Thus, if in the parable of the Laborers in the 
Vineyard (Matt, xx., 1), okohaTrorrjg is " householder" at ver. 
1, it should scarcely be "goodman of the house" at ver. 11.* 
As little should the " governor of the feast" of John ii., 8, be 
the "ruler of the feast" in the very next verse ; or the "good- 
ly apparel" of James ii., 2, be the " gay clothing" of the verse 
following, the words of the original in each case remaining 
unchanged. Then why should not Xapret and Aa^a-w (Matt, 
v., 15, 16) reappear in our version in the intimate relation 
wherein the Lord evidently means them to stand? Seeing, 
too, that he is especially urging the mercy which they who 
have found mercy are bound in return to show, that here is 
the very point of the reproach which the king addresses to 
the unmerciful servant (Matt, xviii., 33), eKeelv ought either 
to have been translated " have pity" or else " have compas- 
sion''' in both clauses of the verse, but not first by one phrase, 
then by the other. 

Again, it would have been clearly desirable that where in 
two, sometimes it is in three, Gospels exactly the same words, 

* Scholefield {Hints, p. 8) farther objects to this last rendering as having 
"a quaintness in it not calculated to recommend it." But it had nothing of 
the kind at the time our translation was made. Compare Spenser, Faery 
Queen, iv., 5, 34: 

"There entering in, they fonnd the goodman self 
Fall busily upon his work ybent." 

And still more to the point, in Holland's Plutarch, p. 200 : "Finding by good 
fortune the good man of the house within, [he] asked for bread and water." 
So in Golding's Ovid, b. i. : 

"The goodman seeks the goodwive's death;" 
this last quotation showing how entirely all ethical sense had departed from 
the word, as now from the French " bonhomme." 



86 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

recording the same event or the same conversation, occur in 
the original, the identity should have been expressed by the 
use of exactly the same words in the English. This continu- 
ally is not the case. Thus,*Matt. xxvi., 41, and Mark xiv., 
38, exactly correspond in the Greek, while in the translation 
the words appear in St. Matthew : " Watch and pray, that ye 
enter not into temptation ; the spirit indeed is willing, but 
the flesh is weak;" in St. Mark: "Watch ye and pray, lest ye 
enter into temptation ; the spirit truly is ready, but the flesh 
is weak." Again, the words Matt, xix., 20, and Mark x., 20, 
exactly agree in the original ; they are far from doing so in 
our version : in St. Matthew : " All these things have I kept 
from my youth up f in St.Mark : " All these have I observed 
from my youth." So, too, " Thy faith hath saved thee," of 
Luke vii., 50, represents exactly the same words as " Thy 
faith hath made thee whole" of Luke xvii.,19: and compare 
Matt, xx., 16 with xxii., 14. 

It may seem a mere trifle that ^uvq fcp/iarii'q is " a leathern 
girdle" in St. Matthew (iii., 4), and " a girdle of a skin" in the 
parallel passage of St. Mark (i., 6) ; yet, not to urge the pure- 
ly gratuitous character of this and similar variations, it must 
not be forgotten that through them a most interesting ques- 
tion, opening into boundless fields of inquiry, namely, the ex- 
act relation of the four several Gospels to one another, and 
the extent to which one sacred writer may have availed him- 
self of the work of a predecessor, is entirely foreclosed to the 
English reader. " There is no reason," it has been well said, 
" why such interesting discussions as those contained in Mi- 
chaelis, and the notes of his learned translator and commen- 
tator, Bishop Marsh, with reference to the correspondence, 
verbal or substantial, and also to the variances, of the differ- 
ent Gospel narratives, should not be as open to an English 
reader as to the Greek scholar. While the harmony of many 
passages, common to two or more evangelists, whether, as in 
some cases, it be perfect, or, as in others, only substantial, 
bears in so interesting a manner on the questions involved 



ON SOME UNNECESSAR Y DISTINCTIONS INTROD UCED. g 7 

in the discussions alluded to, our version seems based on a 
studied design to confound and mislead as to the actual 
facts." 

Not otherwise, in a quotation from the Old Testament, if 
two or more sacred writers quote it in absolutely identical 
words, this fact ought to be reproduced in the version. It 
is not so in respect of the important quotation from Gen. xv., 
6 ; but on the three occasions that it is quoted (Rom. iv., 3 ; 
Gal. iii., 6 ; James ii., 23), it appears with variations, slight, 
indeed, and not in the least affecting the sense, but yet which 
would better have been avoided. Again, the phrase oV/z>) 
EvuZlac, occurring twice in the New Testament, has so fixed, 
I may say, so technical a significance, referring as it does to 
a continually recurring phrase of the Old Testament, that it 
should not be rendered on one occasion "a sweet-smelling 
savor" (Eph. v., 2), on the other "an odor of a sweet smell" 
(Phil, iv., 18). 

In other ways interesting and important relations between 
different parts of Scripture would come out more strongly if 
what is precisely similar in the original had reappeared as 
precisely similar in the translation. The Epistles to the 
Ephesians and to the Colossians profess to have been sent 
from Rome to the East by the same messenger (comp. Eph. vi., 
21, 22 ; Col. iv., 7, 8) ; they were written, therefore, we may 
confidently conclude, about the same time. When we come 
to examine their internal structure, this exactly bears out 
what under such circumstances we should expect in letters 
proceeding from the pen of St. Paul — great differences, but 
at the same time remarkable points of contact and resem- 
blance, both in the thoughts and in the words which are the 
garment of the thoughts. Paley has urged this as an inter- 
nal evidence for the truth of those statements which these 
epistles make about themselves.* This internal evidence to 
which he appeals doubtless exists even now for the English 
reader, but it would press itself on his attention much more 

* Horce Paulince, vi. , § 2. 



88 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

strongly if the exact resemblances in the originals had been 
represented by exact resemblances in the copies. This often- 
times has not been the case. Striking coincidences in lan- 
guage between one epistle and the other, which exist in the 
Greek, do not exist in the English. For example, iripysia 
is " working," Eph. i., 19; it is " operation," Col. ii., 12 : tcltte- 
tvotypoavvri is " lowliness," Eph. iv., 2 ; " humbleness of mind," 
Col. iii., 12 : GvfjL^ifja^d^Evov is " compacted," Eph. iv., 16 ; " knit 
together," Col. iii., 19; with much more of the same kind; as 
is accurately brought out by the late Professor Blunt,* who 
draws one of the chief motives why the clergy should study 
the Scriptures in the original languages from the shortcom- 
ings which exist in the translations of them. 

Before leaving this branch of the subject, I will take a few 
words, and note the variety of rendering to which they are 
submitted in our version. I have not taken them altogether 
at random, yet some of these are by no means the most re- 
markable instances in their kind. They will, however, suffi- 
ciently illustrate the matter in hand. 

'Aderiio, "to reject" (Mark vi., 26) ; "to despise" (Luke x., 
16) ; "to bring to nothing" (l Cor. i., 19) ; "to frustrate" (Gal. 
ii., 21) ; " to disannul" (Gal. iii., 15) ; " to cast off" (1 Tim. v., 
12). 

'Amorardw, " to turn upside down" (Acts xvii., 6) ; "to make 
an uproar" (Acts xxi., 38) ; " to trouble" (Gal. v., 12). 

"ATroicaXv^tQ, " revelation" (Rom. ii., 5) ; " manifestation" 
(Rom. viii., 19) ; " coming" (l Cor. i., 7) ; " appearing" (1 Pet. 
1,1). 

AeXca^w, " to entice" (James i., 14) ; " to beguile" (2 Pet. ii., 
14); "to allure" (2 Pet. ii., 18). 

'EXeyxw, "to tell of [his]" trespass" (Matt, xviii.,15); "to 
reprove" (John xvi., 8) ; "to convict" (John viii., 9); "to con- 
vince" (John viii., 46) ; " to rebuke" (1 Tim. v., 20). 

Zo>oc, "darkness" (2 Pet. ii., 4); "mist" (2 Pet. ii., 17); 

" blackness" (Jude 13). 

* Duties of the Parish Priest, p. 71 . The whole section (p. 47-76) is em- 
inently instructive. 



ON SOME UNNECESSARY DISTINCTIONS INTRODUCED. 



89 



Karapyiu), " to cumber" (Luke xiii., 7) ; "to make without 
effect" (Rom. iii., 3); "to make void" (Rom. iii., 31) ; "to make 
of none effect" (Rom. iv", 14) ; "to destroy" (Rom. vi., 6) ; "to 
loose" (Rom. vii., 2) ; "to deliver" (Rom. vii., 6) ; "to bring 
to naught" (1 Cor. i., 18) ; " to do away" (l Cor. xiii., 10) ; "to 
put away" (1 Cor. xiii., 11) ; "to put down" (1 Cor. xv., 24) ; 
"to abolish" (2 Cor. iii., 13). Add to these, Karapyio/jiai, "to 
come to naught" (l Cor. ii., 6) ; " to fail" (l Cor. xiii., 8) ; " to 
vanish away" (ibid.) ; " to become of none effect" (Gal. v., 4) ; 
"to cease" (Gal. v., 11); and we have here seventeen different 
renderings of this word, occurring in all twenty-seven times 
in the New Testament. 

KarapTifa, "to mend" (Matt, iv., 21); "to perfect" (Matt, 
xxi., 16) ; " to fit" (Rom. ix., 22) ; " to perfectly join together" 
(1 Cor. i., 10) ; " to restore" (Gal. vi., 1) ; "to prepare" (Heb. 
x., 5) ; " to frame" (Heb. xi., 3) ; " to make perfect" (Heb. xiii., 
21). 

Kavxuofiai, "to make boast" (Rom. ii., 17); "to rejoice" 
(Rom. v., 2); "to glory" (Rom. v., 3) ; "to joy" (Rom. v., 11); 
" to boast" (2 Cor. vii., 14). 

Kparecj, " to take" (Matt, ix., 25) ; " to lay hold on" (Matt. 
xii., 11) ; "to lay hands on" (Matt, xviii., 28) ; " to hold fast" 
(Matt, xxvi., 48); "to hold" (Matt, xxviii., 9); "to keep" 
(Mark ix., 10) ; " to retain" (John xx., 23) ; " to obtain" (Acts 
xxvii., 13). 

IlapaKaXiu), "to comfort" (Matt, ii., 18); "to beseech" (Matt, 
viii., 5) ; "to desire" (Matt, xviii., 32) ; "to pray" (Matt, xxvi., 
53) ; " to entreat" (Luke xv., 28) ; " to exhort" (Acts ii., 40) ; 
" to call for" (Acts xxviii., 20). 

Jlarpia, "lineage" (Luke ii., 4); "kindred" (Acts iii., 25); 
" family" (Ephes. iii., 15). 

Let me once more observe, in leaving this part of the sub- 
ject, that I would not for an instant imply that in all these 
places one and the same English word could, have been em- 
ployed, but only that the variety might have been much small- 
er than it actually is. 



90 TRENCH ON A TJTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 



CHAPTER VI. 

ON SOME REAL DISTINCTIONS EFFACED. 

If it is impossible, as has been shown already, in every case 
to render one word in the original by one word, constantly 
employed, in the translation, equally impossible is it, as was 
shown at the same time, to render in every case different 
words in the original by different words in the translation ; 
it continually happening that one language possesses, and 
fixes in words, distinctions of which another takes no note. 
But, with the freest recognition of this, the forces and capac- 
ities of a language should be stretched to the uttermost, the 
riches of its synonyms thoroughly searched out; and not till 
this is done, not till its resources prove plainly insufficient to 
the task, ought translators to acquiesce in the disappearance 
from their copy of distinctions which existed in the original 
from which that copy was made, or to count that, notwith- 
standing this disappearance, they have accomplished all that 
lay on them to accomplish. More might assuredly have been 
here done than has by our translators been attempted, as I 
will endeavor by a few examples to prove. 

Thus one must always regret, and the regret has been oft- 
en expressed — it was so by Broughton almost as soon as our 
version was published* — that in the Apocalypse our transla- 
tors should have rendered drjplov and £wo*> by the same word, 
" beast." Both play important parts in the book ; both be- 
long to its higher symbolism, but to portions the most differ- 
ent. The (wa, or " living creatures," which stand before the 
throne, in which dwells the fullness of all creaturely life, as it 

* Of the %u>a, or "wights," as he and other of our early divines called 
them, he says, in language hardly too strong, " they are barbarously translated 
beasts."— Works, p. 639. 



ON SOME REAL DISTINCTION'S EFFACED. 



91 



gives praise and glory to God (iv., 6, 7, 8, 9 ; v., 6 ; vi.,1; and 
often), form part of the heavenly symbolism; the depict, the 
first beast and the second, which rise up, one from the bot- 
tomless pit (xi., 7), the other from the sea (xiii., 1), of which 
the one makes war upon the two witnesses, the other opens 
his mouth in blasphemies, these form part of the hellish sym- 
bolism. To confound these and those under a common des- 
ignation, to call those " beasts" and these " beasts," would be 
an oversight, even granting the name to be suitable to both ; 
it is a most serious one when the word used, bringing out, as 
this must, the predominance of the lower animal life, is ap- 
plied to glorious creatures in the very court and presence of 
Heaven. The error is common to all the translations. That 
the Rheims should not have escaped it is strange ; for the 
Vulgate renders (wa by "animalia" ("animantia" would have 
been still better), and only drjplov by " bestia." If £u>a had al- 
ways been rendered " living creatures," this would have had 
the additional advantage of setting these symbols of the 
Apocalypse, even for the English reader, in an unmistakable- 
connection with Ezek. i.,5, 13, 14, and often; where "living 
creature" is the rendering in our English Version of n*n, as 

O O T - J 

Z&ov is in the Septuagint. 

Matt, xxii., 1-14. — In this parable of the Marriage of the 
King's Son, the dovXoi who summon the bidden guests (ver. 3, 
4), and the diaicovoi who in the end expel the unworthy intru- 
der (ver. 13), should not have been confounded under the 
common name of " servants." A real and important distinc- 
tion between the several actors in the parable is in this way 
obliterated. The SovXoi are men, the ambassadors of Christ, 
those that invite their fellow- men to the blessings of the 
kingdom of heaven ; but the Sicikovoi are angels, those that 
"stand by" (Luke xix., 24), ready to fulfill the divine judg- 
ments, and whom we ever find the executors of these judg- 
ments in the day of Christ's appearing. They are as distinct 
from one another as the "servants of the householder," who 
in like manner are men, and the " reapers," who are angels, 

Y 



92 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

in the parable of the Tares (Matt, xiii., 27, 30). The distinc- 
tion which we have lost the Vulgate has preserved; the BovXoi 
are " servi," the Ilclkovol "ministri;" and all our early transla- 
tions in like manner rendered the words severally by " serv- 
ants" and "ministers," the Rheims by " servants" and " wait- 
ers."* 

There is a very real distinction between amaria and cnrei- 
Oeia. It is often urged by our elder divines, as by Jackson 
in more passages than one, but it is not constantly observed 
by our translators. 'A^torm is, I believe, always and rightly 
rendered " unbelief," while cnreideta is in most cases rendered, 
and rightly, " disobedience ;" perhaps " contumacy" would still 
better have expressed the positive active character which in 
it is implied ; but on two occasions (Heb. iv., 6, 11) it also is 
translated " unbelief." In like manner, amtrreiv is properly 
"to refuse belief" aireiQfiv "to refuse obedience /" but aireLQeiv 
is often in our translation allowed to run into the sense of 
tnrttTTew, as at John iii., 36; Acts xiv., 2; xix., 9; Rom. xi., 
30 (the right translation in the margin) ; and yet, as I have 
said, the distinction is real ; aireideia, or " disobedience," is the 
result of aTTiorta, or " unbelief ;" they are not identical with 
one another. 

Again, there was no possible reason why ao^oe and <pp6vifioQ 

* The remarkable fact that SouXog is never rendered "slave" in our ver- 
sion, that a word apparently of such prime necessity as "slave" only occurs 
twice in the whole English Bible — once in the old Testament (Jer. ii., 14) 
and once in the New (Rev. xviii., 13, for adjfiara), must be explained in part 
by the comparative newness of the word in our language (Gascoigne is the 
earliest authority for it which our Dictionaries give). This, however, would 
not of itself be sufficient to account for it, in the presence of the frequent em- 
ployment of "slave" in the contemporary writings of Shakespeare. The rea- 
son lies deeper. In the ancient world, where almost all service was slavery, 
there was no opprobium, no ethical contempt tinging the word dovXog. It is 
otherwise with "slave" in that modern world where slavery and liberty exist 
side by side, where it is felt that no man ought to be a slave, that no very 
brave man would be ; that the service which the slave renders is rendered 
not for conscience sake, but of compulsion. It is impossible to dissociate the 
word now from something of contempt. "Paul, the slave of Jesus Christ," 
literally accurate, would in fact have said something very different from Hav- 
Xoc, 5oiiXog 'l-qaov Xpiorou. 



ON SOME REAL DISTINCTIONS EFFACED. 93 

should not have been kept asunder, and the real distinction 
which exists between them in the original maintained also in 
our version. We possess "wise" for (toQoq, and "prudent" 
for (ppopifiog. It is true that gvvetoq has taken possession of 
" prudent," but might have better been rendered by " under- 
standing." Our translators have thrown away their advan- 
tage here, rendering, I believe in every case, both aofog and 
Qpovi/jiog by "wise," although in no single instance are the 
words interchangeable. The (ppovtfiog is one who dexterously 
adapts his means to his ends (Luke xvi., 8), the word express- 
ing nothing in respect of the ends themselves, whether they 
are worthy or not ; the <jo$6q is one whose means and ends 
are alike worthy. God is (jotyog (Jude 25) ; wicked men may 
be (j>p6vtnoi, while arofyoi, except in the aofyia tov Koa-fiov, which 
is itself an ironical term, they could never be. How much 
would have been gained at Luke xvi., 8, if QpovlfxwQ had been 
rendered not "wisely," but "prudently;" how much needless 
offense would have been avoided ! 

The standing word which St. Paul uses to express the for- 
giveness of sins is atyeaiQ ctfiapnioy ; but on one remarkable oc- 
casion he changes his word, and instead of a<pzaiQ employs na- 
peaig (Rom. iii., 25). Our translators take no note of the very 
noticeable substitution, but render iraptaiv afxapnuiv, or rather 
here ajuaprry/xarwj/, " remission of sins," as every where else 
they have rendered the more usual phrase. But it was not 
for nothing that St. Paul used here quite another word. He 
is speaking of quite a different thing ; he is speaking, not of 
the " remission" of sins, or the letting of them quite go, but 
of the "pretermission" (7rajoeo7^from irapirifu), the passing of 
them by on the part of God for a while, the temporary dis- 
simulation upon his part, which found place under the old 
covenant, in consideration of the great sacrifice which was 
one day to be. The passage is further obscured by the fact 
that our translators have rendered &a rrjv irapeotv as though 
it had been Ith rijg Trapiveiog — "for the remission," that is, with 
a view to the remission, while the proper rendering of &a, 



94 • TRENCH ON AUTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

with an accusative, would of course have been " because of 
the remission," or, better, " the pretermission," or, as Ham- 
mond proposes, "because of the passing by, of past sins." 
What the apostle would say is this : " There needed a signal 
manifestation of the righteousness of God on account of the 
long pretermission, or passing by, of sins in his infinite for- 
bearance, with no adequate expression of his righteous wrath 
against them during all those ages which preceded the reve- 
lation of Christ ; which manifestation of his righteousness at 
length found place when he set forth no other and no less 
than his own Son to be the propitiatory sacrifice for sin." 
But the passage, as we have it now, can not be said to yield 
this meaning. 

There are two occasions on which a multitude is miracu- 
lously fed by our Lord ; and it is not a little remarkable that 
on the first occasion in every narrative, and there are four 
records of the miracle, the word ko^ivoq is used of the baskets 
in which the fragments which remain are gathered up (Matt. 
xiv.,20; Mark vi.,43; Luke ix.,17; John vi., 13), while on 
occasion of the second miracle, in the two records which are 
all that we have of it, (nrvpig is used (Matt, xv., 37; Mark 
viii., 8) ; and in proof that this is not accidental, see Matt, 
xvi., 9, 10; Mark viii., 19, 20. The fact is a slight, yet not 
unimportant, testimony to the entire distinctness of the two 
miracles, and that we have not here, as some of the modern 
assailants of the historical accuracy of the Gospels assure us, 
two confused traditions of one and the same event. What 
the exact distinction between ko^ivoq and airvpiq is may be 
hard to determine, and it may not be very easy to suggest 
what second word should have marked this distinction ; for 
" maunds" is now obsolete, and a " canister" is not a basket 
any longer ; yet I can not but think that where not merely 
the evangelists in their narrative, but the Lord in his allusion 
to the event, so distinctly marks a difference, we should have 
attempted to mark it also, as the Vulgate by " cophini" and 
" sportse" has done. 



Oy SOME REAL DISTLYCTIOXS EFFACED. 95 

Again, our translators obliterate, for the most part, the 
distinction between ttcuq Qeov and vlug Qeov as applied to 
Christ. There are five passages in the New Testament in 
which the title ttcuq Qeov is given to the Son of God. In the 
first of these (Matt, xii., 18) they have rendered ttcuq by "serv- 
ant ;" and they would have done well if they had abode by 
this in the other four. These all occur in the Acts, and in 
every one of them the notion of "servant" is abandoned, and 
"son" (Acts iii.,13, 26), or "child" (Acts iv., 27, 30), intro- 
duced. I can not but feel that in this they were in error. 
Tlcug Qeov might be rendered " servant of God," and I am per- 
suaded that it ought. It might be, for it needs not to say 
ttcuq is continually used like the Latin " puer" in the sense of 
servant, and in the LXX. ttcuq Qeov as the " servant of God ;" 
David calls himself so no less than seven times in 2 Sam. vii.; 
comp. Luke i., 69 ; Acts iv., 25 ; Job i., 8 ; Psa. xix., 12, 14. 
But not merely it might have been thus rendered ; it also 
should have been, as these reasons convince me : Every stu- 
dent of prophecy must have noticed how much there is in 
Isaiah prophesying of Christ under the aspect of " the serv- 
ant of the Lord;" "Israel my servant /" "my servant whom 
I uphold" (Isa. xlii., 1-7 ; xlix., 1-12 ; Hi, 13 ; liii., 11). I say, 
prophesying of Christ ; for I dismiss, as a baseless dream of 
those who a priori are determined that there are, and there- 
fore shall be, no prophecies in Scripture, the notion that " the 
servant of Jehovah" in Isaiah is Israel according to the flesh, 
or Isaiah himself, or the body of the prophets collectively 
considered, or any other except Christ himself. But it is 
quite certain, from the inner harmonies of the Old Testa- 
ment and the New, that wherever there is a large group of 
prophecies in the Old, there is some allusion to them in the 
New. Unless, however, we render ttcuq Qeov by " servant of 
God" in the places where that phrase occurs in the New, 
there will be no allusion throughout it all to that group of 
prophecies which designate the Messiah as the servant of Je- 
hovah, who learned obedience by the things which he suffer- 



96 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

ed. I can not doubt, and, as far as I know, this is the conclu- 
sion of all who have considered the subject, that 7ra7c Oeov 
should be rendered " servant of God" as often as in the New 
Testament it is used of Christ. His Sonship will remain suf- 
ficiently declared in innumerable other passages. 

Something of precision and beauty is lost at John x., 16, 
through a rendering ofavXij and ^oi^vr] both by "fold :" "And 
other sheep I have, which are not of this fold (avXrjg) ; these 
also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and there 
shall be onefold (7rotfivr}) and one shepherd." It is remarka- 
ble that in the Vulgate there is the same obliteration of the 
distinction between the two words, "ovile" standing for both. 
Substitute " flock" for " fold" on the second occasion of its 
occurring (this was Tyndale's rendering, which we should 
not have forsaken), and it will be at once felt how much the 
verse will gain. The Jew and the Gentile are the two "folds" 
which Christ, the Good Shepherd, will gather into a single 
"flock." 

As a farther example, take John xvii., 12 : "While I was 
with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that 
thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost." It is 
not a great matter; yet who would not gather from this 
" kept," recurring twice in this verse, that there must be also 
in the original some word of the like recurrence ? Yet it is 
not so ; the first " kept" is irripovv, and the second tyvXafa : 
nor are rrjpelv and ^vXaatreiv here such mere synonyms that 
the distinction between them may be effaced without loss. 
The first is " servare," or, better, " conservare ;" the second 
" custodire ;" and the first, the keeping or preserving, is the 
consequence of the second, the guarding. What the Lord 
would say is, "I so guarded, so protected (eyvXafa), those 
whom thou hast given me, that I kept and preserved them 
(this the Trjprjtng) unto the present day." Thus Lampe : " rr)- 
pslv est generalius, vitseque novse jinalem conservationem po- 
test exprimere ; tyvXaaaeiv vero specialius mediorum prsestati- 
onem, per quae finis ille obtinetur;" and he proceeds to quote, 



ON SOME REAL DISTINCTIONS EFFA CED. 9 7 

excellently to the point, Prov. xix., 16: og (pvXaaffei kv-oXriv, 
rrjpeT. T))u lavrov \pv)({]v. 

Before leaving this branch of the subject, I will give a few 
examples more of the way in which a single word in the En- 
glish does duty for many in the Greek. " To ordain" stands 
for all these words : KadlaTrjfii (Tit. i., 5) ; opt^u (Acts x., 42) ; 
TToiiio (Mark iii., 14) ; rarraui (Acts xiii., 48) ; Tidr)jj.i (John xv., 
16); x £t i° oro ^ ,w (Acts xiv., 23). Again, we are tempted to 
ask, without always being able, even while we ask the ques- 
tion, to offer a satisfactory answer to it, might not something 
have been done to distinguish between avaa-pocpj] (Gal. i., 13), 
rpoiiOQ (Heb. xiii., 5), -KoXi-iv^ia (Phil, iii., 20), all rendered " con- 
versation ;" between <povtvc (l Pet. iv., 15), (wcapiog (Acts xxi., 
38), avQpuTTOK-ovoQ (1 John iii., 15), all rendered "murderer;" 
between Uk-vov (Matt, iv., 20), a^ipX^cr-pov (Matt, iv., 18), and 
oayr]vr) (Matt, xiii., 47), all translated "net?" Or take the 
words " thought" and " to think." The Biblical psychology 
is anyhow a subject encumbered with most serious perplexi- 
ties. He finds it so, and often sees his way but obscurely, 
who has all the helps which the most accurate observation 
and comparison of the terms actually used by the sacred 
writers will afford. Of course, none but the student of the 
original document can have these helps in their fullness ; at 
the same time, it scarcely needed that " thought" should be 
employed as the rendering alike of evdvfxrjatc (Matt, ix., 4), 
SiaXoyicr/jiOQ (Matt. XV., 19), liavorjfjia (Luke xi., 17), kirLvoia (Acts 
viii., 22), Xoyia/jLog (Rom. ii., 15), and vorj/xa (2 Cor. x., 5) ; or 
that the verb " to think" should in the passages which follow 
be the one English representative of a still wider circle of 
w T ords, of 2odu) (Matt, iii., 9), vo/jlI£u) (Matt, v., 17), hdv/uio/jtai 
(Matt, ix., 4), ^laXoyt^ofiai (Luke xii., 17), hevdvpiofiai (Acts x., 
19), vTrovoico (Acts xiii., 25), yyeofiai (Acts xxvi., 2), Kpivu) (Acts 
xxvi., 8), (ppoviu) (Rom. xii., 3), Xoyii^ofxat (2 Cor. iii., 5), roiia 
(Eph. iii., 20), o"io\iai (James i., 7).* 

* For the distinction between some, at least, of these, a distinction which it 



98 TRENCH ON A UTIT. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

One example more. The verb " to trouble" is a very fa- 
vorite one with our translators. There are no less than ten 
Greek words or phrases which it is employed by them to 
render ; these, namely : kottovq Trapiyu* (Matt, xxvi., 10), <tkv\\(*) 
(Mark v., 35), Siarapaffcrto (Luke i., 29), Tvp(3a£io (Luke x., 41), 
7rapevo)(Xi(i) (Acts XV., 19), Oopvfjiojjiai (Acts XX., 10), rapdcrau) 
(Gal. i., 7), avacrrarow (Gal V., 12), 6\i(3io (2 Thess. i., 6), evo X - 
\eu) (Heb. xii., 15). If we add to these iKTapaaraio, " exceed- 
ingly to trouble" (Acts xvi., 20), Qpoiofiai, " to be troubled" 
(Matt, xxiv., 6), the word will do duty for no fewer than 
twelve Greek words. Now the English language may not 
be so rich in synonyms as the Greek ; but with " vex," " har- 
ass," " annoy," " disturb," " distress," " afflict," " disquiet," 
" unsettle," " burden," " terrify," almost every one of which 
would in one of the above places or other seem to me more 
appropriate than the word actually employed, I can not ad- 
mit that the poverty or limited resources of our language left 
no choice here but to efface all the distinctions between these 
words, as by the employment, of "trouble" for them all has, 
in these cases at least, been done. 

would be quite possible to reproduce in English, see Vomel, Synon. Worterbuch, 
p. 131, s. v. "glauben." 



ON SOME BETTER RENDERINGS FORSAKEN, ETC. 99 



CHAPTER VII. 

ON SOME BETTER RENDERINGS FORSAKEN, OR PLACED IN 
THE MARGIN. 

Occasionally, but rarely, our translators dismiss a better 
rendering, which was in one or more of the earlier versions, 
and replace it by a worse. It may be said of their version, 
in comparison with those which went before, that it occupies 
very much the place which the Yulgate did in regard of the 
Latin versions preceding. In the whole, an immense improve- 
ment, while yet in some minor details they are more accurate 
than it. This is so in the passages which follow. 

Matt, xxviii., 14. — "And if this come to the governor's ears, 
we will persuade him, and secure you." The Geneva Ver- 
sion, but that alone among the previous ones,* had given the 

* It is evident that there must have been some very good and careful schol- 
arship brought to bear on this version, or revision rather. I have observed, 
on several occasions, that it is the first to seize the exact meaning of a pas- 
sage, which all the preceding versions had missed. I will adduce, in a note, 
three or four occasions which present themselves to me where this has been 
the case. 

Mark xiv. , 72. — Kai kirifiakwv t/cXate. All versions, from Wicliffe to Cran- 
mer inclusive, "And began to weep," a rendering which even our Authorized 
Version has allowed in the margin. But the Geneva rightly, "And weigh- 
ing that with himself Q7rij3a\u)v, that is, rbv vovv), he wept." Our version 
is indeed better, "And when he thought thereon, he wept;" but the Geneva 
is correct, and the first which is so. 

Luke xi., 17. — Kai oJkoq t-iri oIkov, ttiittu. Tyndale had it, "And one 
house shall fall upon another ;" Cranmer and Coverdale the same. Even to 
this present day there are those who maintain this version — Meyer, for in- 
stance, with that singular perversity which, amid his eminent exegetical tact, 
he contrives sometimes to display — making this not an independent clause 
and thought, but merely a drawing out more at large the tprnxcjmQ of the 
j3am\eia, just before spoken of. But the Geneva rightly, assuming a comma 
after oTkov, and drawing a Sia/xepio-Qsig from the preceding clause into this, 
"And a house divided against itself, falleth :" comp.Matt. xii., 35. 

Acts xxiii., 27. — 'E^uXdfxrjv civtov, /xaOdjv on 'Pw/kuoc Icnv. Here, too, 



1 00 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

passage rightly: "And if this come before the governor (ra! 
kav aKovadrj touto etX tov f]ys/ji6vog), we will pacify hiin, and save 
you harmless." The words of the original have reference to 
a judicial hearing of the matter before the governor ("si res 
apud ilium judicem agatur," Erasmus), and not to the possi- 
bility of its reaching his ears by hearsay; but this our trans- 
lation fails to express. In 7raVo/*£v, I may observe, lies a eu- 
phemism by no means rare in Hellenistic Greek (see Krebs, 
Obss. e Jbsepho, in loco) : " We will take effectual means to 
persuade him ;" as, knowing the covetous, greedy character 
of the man, they were able confidently to promise. 

the Geneva is the first which brings out the characteristic untruth of which 
Lysias, who otherwise recommends himself favorably to us, is guilty in his 
letter to Felix. Wishing to obtain credit with his superior officer, to set his 
own zeal in the most favorable light, he contrives, by a slight shifting of the 
order of events, to make it appear that he rescued Paul out of the hands of 
the fanatic Jewish populace, "having understood that he was a Roman;" 
when, indeed, he only discovered the citizenship of Paul at a later period 
(comp. xxi., 32, 33, and xxii., 27), and not until he had grossly outraged the 
majesty of Rome in him, all mention of which he naturally suppresses. The 
earlier Anglican versions had it, "Then came I with soldiers and rescued 
him, and perceived that he was a Roman ;" as though, which was indeed the 
fact, but not what he would present as the fact, he had perceived this after 
the rescue; but the Geneva rightly, "perceiving that he was Roman" — not 
the truth, but what he would present as the truth. The attempt of Grotius 
to make fxaOwv here =icai 'ifiadov must be decidedly rejected; see Winer, 
Gramm., § 46. 

Acts xxvii., 9. — Ata to ical rr\v vrjffTeiav rjdrj Traptkrjkvdtvai. None of our 
earlier translators appear to have been aware that rj vrjaTtia was a name by 
which the great fast of the Atonement, being the only fast specially com- 
manded in the Jewish ritual (Lev. xvi., 29; xxiii., 27), was technically 
known ; see Philo, Be Septen. , § 2. We may see from Tyndale's words, "be- 
cause also we had overlong fasted," how utterly astray they would be, in con- 
sequence of this ignorance, as regards the meaning of this passage. But the 
Geneva rightly, " because also the time of the fast was now passed." 

James i., 13. — 'O yap Qi.bg cnriipaaToe. ian kukGov. All the translations 
which had gone before, from Wickliffe to Cranmer, giving to airtipaoTog. an 
active signification, which it certainly might have, but has not here, had made 
this clause a mere tautology to that which follows. Thus Tyndale: "For 
God tempteth not unto evil, neither tempteth he any man." The Geneva first 
ascribed to airEipaoTOQ its proper passive force (see Winer, Gramm., § 30, 4), 
translating in words which our version has retained, "For God can not be 
tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. " 



ON SOME BETTER RENDERINGS FORSAKEN, ETC. \q\ 

Mark xi., 17. — " Is it not written, My house shall be called 
of all nations the house of prayer ? but ye have made it a 
den of thieves." In Tyndale's version, in Cranmer's, and the 
Geneva, "My house shall be called the house of prayer unto 
all nations ; but ye, etc.," and rightly. There is no difficulty 
whatever in giving ndcri roig tdveat a dative rather than an 
ablative sense, while thus the passage is brought into exact 
agreement with that in Isaiah, to which Christ, in his "Is it 
not written ?" refers, namely, Isa. lvi., 1 ; aud, moreover, the 
point of his words is preserved, which the present transla- 
tion misses. Our Lord's indignation was aroused in part at 
the profanation of the holy precincts of his Father's house, 
but in part, also, by the fact that, the scene of this profana- 
tion being the court of the Gentiles, the Jews have thus man- 
aged to testify their contempt for them, and for their share 
in the blessings of the covenant. Those parts of the Temple 
which were exclusively their own, the Court of the Priests 
and the Court of the Israelites, they had kept clear of these 
buyers and sellers; but that part assigned to the Gentile 
worshipers, the (re/jofiepoi top 0f6V, they were little concerned 
about the profanation to which it was exposed, perhaps 
pleased with it rather. But He who came into the world to 
be a Redeemer, not of Jews only, but also of Gentiles, quotes 
in a righteous indignation the words of the prophet, which 
they had done all that in them lay to irritate and defeat: 
" My house shall be called the house of prayer unto all na- 
tions :" all which intention on his part in the citation of the 
prophecy our version fails to preserve. Mede, in an interest- 
ing discourse upon the text,* ascribes to the influence of Beza 
this alteration, which is certainly one for the worse. 

Luke xvi.,1. — "The same was accused unto him that he 
had wasted his goods." The Geneva had corrected this, which 
was in Tyndale and Cranmer, and given to wq Zia^KopTri^ov its 
proper sense, " that he wasted" the accusation referring not 
to what the steward had done, but now was doing. 
* Works, London, 1672, p. 44 ; comp. p. 11. 



102 TRENCH ON AUTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

Acts xxi., 3. — " For there the ship icas to unlade her bur- 
den." This, supported though it be by Valckenaer ("eo na- 
vis merces expositura erat") and others, is incorrect. There 
can no such future sense be given to r\v a7ro<pop-L^6^evov ; see 
Winer, Gramm., § 46, 5. St. Luke would say "was unlad- 
ing," or " was engaged in unlading ;" and Tyndale rightly, 
whom Cranmer and the Geneva follow : " For there the ship 
unladed her burden." He is speaking from a point of view 
taken after the ship's arrival at this place, and of what it act- 
ually did, not of what it should do. 

Ephes. iv., 18. — "Because of the blindness of their hearts." 
The Geneva Version had given this rightly: "Because of the 
hardness of their heart ;" which better rendering our trans- 
lators forsake, being content to place it in the margin. But 
there can be no doubt that Trtopwatg is from the substantive 
-rriopoc, a porous kind of stone, and from 7rwjodw, to become cal- 
lous, hard, or stony (Mark vi., 52 ; John xii., 40 ; Rom. xi., 7; 
2 Cor. iii., 14) ; not from Trwpoe, blind. How much better, too, 
this agrees with what follows — " who, being past feeling" 
(that is, having through their hardness or callousness of heart 
arrived at a condition of miserable dvato-0?yo-m),"have given 
themselves over to work all uncleanness with greediness." 
I may observe that at Rom. xi., V, they have in like manner 
put " blinded" in the text, and " hardened," the correct ren- 
dering of £7rojpwdr)(Tav, in the margin: while at 2 Cor. iii., 14, 
where they translate dW iinopwdrj ra vorjuara cu/rwj>," but their 
minds were blinded" the correcter is not even offered as an 
alternative rendering. Wicliffe and the Rheims, which both 
depend on the Vulgate ("sed obtusi sunt sensus eorum"), are 
here the only correct versions. 

1 Thess. v., 22. — "Abstain from all appearance of evil." 
An injurious rendering of the words awd navrog eidovg novqpov 
a-n-ix^de, and a going back from the right translation. "Ab- 
stain from all kind of evil," which the Geneva Version had. 
It is from the reality of evil, and eUog here means this (see a 
good note in Hammond), not from the appearance, which 



ON SOME BETTER RENDERINGS FORSAKEN, ETC. 103 

God's Word elsewhere commands us to abstain ; nor does it 
here command any other thing.* Indeed, there are times 
when, so far from abstaining from all appearance of evil, it 
will be a part of Christian courage not to abstain from such. 
It was an " appearance of evil" in the eyes of the Pharisees 
when our Lord healed on the Sabbath, or showed himself a 
friend of publicans and sinners; but Christ did not therefore 
abstain from this or from that. How many " appearances of 
evil," which he might have abstained from, yet did not, must 
St.Paul's own conversation have presented in the eyes of the 
zealots for the ceremonial law. I was once inclined to think 
that our translators used "appearance" here as we might 
now use " form," and that we therefore had here an obsolete, 
not an inaccurate rendering ; but I can find no authority for 
this use of the word. 

1 Tim. vi., 5. — " Supposing that gain is godliness." It is 
difficult to connect any meaning whatever with this lan- 
guage. But Coverdale, and he alone of our translators, deals 
with these words, vojjli^ovtiop Tzopia[iov elvai T))v ei/o-f'/Gactv, right- 
ly — " which think that godliness is lucre," i. e., a means of gain. 
The want of a thorough mastery of the Greek article and its 
use left it possible here to go back from a right rendering 
once attained. 

Heb. ix., 23. — " It was therefore necessary that the patterns 
of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but 
the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than 
these." " Patterns" introduces some confusion here, and is 
not justified by the word's use in the time of our translators 
any more than in our own. It is, of course, quite true that 
viroSeLyiia may mean, and, indeed, often does mean, " pattern" 
or "exemplar" (John xiii.,15). But here, as at viii., 5 (Iko- 
heiyfxa kal oxm), it can only mean the " copy" drawn from this 

* Jeanes, chiefly remembered now for his theological controversy with Jer- 
emy Taylor, in which the greater man had not always the best of the argu- 
ment, in a treatise of some merit, Concerning Abstinence from all Appearance 
of Evil (Works, 1660, p. 68 sqq.), defends our present version of the words. 



104 TRENCH ON A JJTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

exemplar. The heavenly things themselves are "the pat- 
terns" or archetypes, the " Urbilder ;" the earthly, the Levit- 
ical tabernacle, with its priests and sacrifices, are the copies, 
the similitudes, the " Abbilder," which, as such, are partakers, 
not of a real, but a typical purification. This is, indeed, the 
very point which the apostle is urging, and his whole antith- 
esis is confused by calling the earthly things " the patterns," 
being, as they are, only the shadows of the true. The earlier 
translators, Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Geneva, had " simili- 
tudes," which was correct, though it seems to me that " cop- 
ies" would be preferable.* 

Heb. xi., 13. — " These all died in faith ; not having received 
the promises, but having seen them afar oif, and were per- 
suaded of them, and embraced them." But with all respect 
be it said, this " embracing the promises" was the very thing 
which the worthies of the Old Testament did not do, and 
which the sacred writer is urging throughout that they did 
not do, who only saw them from afar, as things distant and 
not near. Our present rendering is an unfortunate going 
back from Tyndale's and Cranmer's "saluted them," from 
Wicliffe's " greeted them." The beautiful image of mariners 
homeward bound, who recognize from afar the promontories 
and well-known features of a beloved land, and " greet" or 
" salute" these from a distance, is lost to us. Estius : " Chry- 
sostomus dictum putat ex metaphora navigantium qui ex 
longinquo prospiciunt civitates desideratas, quas antequam 
ingrediantur et inhabitent, salutatione prseveniunt." Comp. 
Virgil,^£k,iii.,524: 

" Italiam lseto socii clamore salutant" 
In other respects our own version is unsatisfactory. The 

* It is familiarly known to all students of English that " pattern" is origi- 
nally only another spelling of "patron" (the client imitates his patron ; the 
copy takes after its pattern), however they may have now separated off into 
two words. But it is interesting to notice the word when as yet this separa- 
tion of one into two had not uttered itself in different orthography. We do 
this Heb. viii., 5 (Geneva Version) : "which priestes serve unto the patrone 
and shadow of heavenly things. " 



ON SOME BETTER RENDERINGS FORSAKEN ETC. 



105 



words, " and were persuaded of them," have no right to a 
place in the text ; while the " afar off" (noppioQev) belongs not 
to the seeing alone, but to the saluting as well. How beau- 
tifully the verse would read thus amended : "These all died 
in faith ; not having received the promises, but having seen 
and saluted them from afar." We have exactly such a salu- 
tation from afar in the words of the dying Jacob : " I have 
waited for thy salvation, O Lord" (Gen. xlix., 18). 

1 Pet. i., 17. — "And if ye call on the Father, who without 
respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, 
pass the time of your sojourning here in fear." Here, too, it 
must be confessed that we have left a better and chosen a 
worse rendering. The Geneva had it, " And if ye call Him 
Father, who without respect of persons, etc.," and this, and 
this only, is the meaning which the words of the original, ko.1 
el JJaTepa kitiKaXeiaQE top airpo(Tii)7ro\ri7rT(i)g Kpivovra, K.r.X., will bear. 

It must not be supposed from what has been here ad; 
duced that our translators did not exercise a very careful 
revision of the translations preceding. In every page of 
their work there is evidence that they did so. Of many pas- 
sages our Authorized Version is the first that has seized the 
true meaning. It would be easy for me to bring forward 
many proofs of this, only that my task is here, passing over 
the hundred excellencies, to fasten rather on the single fault; 
and I must therefore content myself with just sufficient to 
confirm my assertion. Thus, at Heb. iv., 1, none of the pre- 
ceding versions, neither the Anglican, nor the Rheims, had 
correctly given KaraXenrofiiprjg zirayyekLaQ'. they all translate 
it " forsaking the promise," or something similar, instead of, 
as we have rightly done, " a promise being left us." Again, 
at Acts xii., 19, the technical meaning of cnraxQfjvcii (like the 
Latin " duci," " agi"), that it signifies here to be " led away to 
execution'' 1 (comp. Demosthenes, 431, 7), is wholly missed by 
Tyndale ("he examined the keepers and commanded to de- 
part"), by Cranmer and the Rheims; it is only partially 
seized by the Geneva Version (" commanded them to be led 



106 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

to be famished"), but perfectly by our translators. Far more 
important than this is the clear recognition of the personali- 
ty of the Word in the prologue of St. John by our translators : 
"All things were made by Him;" " In ITim was life" (John 
i., 3, 4); while in all our preceding versions it is read,"All 
things were made by it" and so on. Our version is the first 
which gives awaXi&iiEvoQ (Acts i.,4) rightly. 

Improvements also are very frequent in single words and 
phrases, even where those which are displaced were not ab- 
solutely incorrect. " Thus, how much better " earnest expec- 
tation" (Rom. viii., 19) than "fervent desire," as a rendering 
of cnrotcapaSoKia ; " moved with envy" (Acts vii., 9) than "hav- 
ing indignation" of ^Xwo-avrec; " tattlers" than " triflers," as 
a rendering of (jAiapoi (l Tim. v., 13); indeed, the latter could 
hardly be said to be correct.* How much better " being got- 
ten from them" than "being parted from them" (Acts xxi.,1), 
for it expresses, perhaps even it too weakly {awoairaaQivraQ is 
the word in the original), the painful struggle with which 
this separation was effected, of which there is no hint in the 
versions preceding. "Whited sepulchres" is an improvement 
upon "painted sepulchres" (ra</>oi KEKoviajjiivoi, Matt, xxiii., 27), 
which all our preceding versions had. "Without distrac- 
tion" (1 Cor. vii., 35) is a far better rendering of InrepHnraaTioQ 
than "without separation." "Leopard" is better than "cat 
of the mountain," Rev. xiii., 2 (it is iraplakiQ in the original). 
"Mysteries," i. e., "religious secrets," is much to be preferred 
to " secrets," which all our preceding Anglican versions had 
often, though not always, where the word nvariipiov occurred 
(Matt, xiii., 11 ; Rom. xi., 25 ; 1 Cor. xiii., 2). "Be opened" 
or " be disclosed," with which all that went before rendered 
cnroKa\v(pQri (2 Thess. ii., 3) — and compare ver. 8, "be uttered" 
— quite obscured the terrible signification of the revelation 

* Unless, indeed, " trifler" once meant " utterer of trifles," and thus "tat- 
tler;" which may pei'haps be, as I observe in the fragment Of a Nominale 
published by Wright, National Antiquities, vol. i., p. 216, " nugigerulus" giv- 
en as the Latin equivalent of " trifler." 



OX SO JIB BETTER REXDERIXGS FORSAKEX, ETC. 107 

of the 31an of Sin, which the apostle sets over against the 
revelation of the Son of God. It was slovenly to introduce 
" Candy," the modern name of Crete, which all before our 
own had done, at Acts xxvii., 7, 12, 21, but which in ours is 
removed, and not less slovenly to confound " Nazarite" and 
" ]S T azarene," substituting the former for the latter, an error 
into which, in like manner, they all, at Matt, ii., 23, and Acts 
xxiv., 5, had fallen, introducing, in the former of these places 
at least, a new element of difficulty into a passage sufficient- 
ly difficult already. 

But this going back from preferable renderings already at- 
tained is not all. There are better translations, derived either 
from the labors of their predecessors or suggested to them- 
selves, which, provokingly enough, they half adopt, placing 
them in the margin, while they satisfy themselves with a 
worse in the text. It may perhaps be urged that here, at 
least, they offer the better to the reader's choice. But prac- 
tically this can not be said to be the case. For, in the first 
place, the proportion of our Bibles is very small even now 
which are printed with these marginal variations, as com- 
pared with those in which they are suppressed. At one time 
it was smaller still ; from some words of Hammond in the ad- 
vertisement to his Xew Testament, it would seem they had 
entirely dropped out of use in his time — he speaks there of 
" the manner which was formerly used in our Bibles of the 
larger impression, of noting some other renderings in the 
margin." They are thus brought under the notice of very 
few among the readers of Scripture. Nor is this all. They 
are very rarely referred to even by these. How many, for in- 
stance, among these, even know of the existence of a varia- 
tion so important as that at John iii., 3 ? And even if they 
do refer, they generally attach comparatively little authority 
to them. They acquiesce for the most part, and naturally 
acquiesce, in the verdict of the translators about them, who, 
by placing them in the margin and not in the text, evidently 

Z 



108 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

declare that they consider them not the best, but the second 
best and the less probable renderings. Then, too, of course, 
they are never heard in the public services of the Church, 
which, till the Scriptures are far more diligently studied in 
private than now they are, must always be a chief source of 
the popular acquaintance with them. It is impossible, then, 
to attach to a right interpretation in the margin any serious 
value, as redressing an erroneous or imperfect one in the text. 
Marginal variations are quite without influence as modifying 
the impression which the body of English readers derive of 
any passages in the English Bible ; and this leads me to ob- 
serve, by the way, that the suggestion which has been some- 
times made of a large addition to these, as a middle way and 
compromise between leaving our version as it is, and intro- 
ducing actual changes into its text, does not seem to me to 
open any real escape from our difficulties, nor to offer any 
practical reconciliation of their wishes who claim and theirs 
who disclaim a revision, while the objections which would at- 
tend it are many. 

But to return. The following are passages in which I can 
not doubt that the better version has been placed in the mar- 
gin, the worse in the text. 

Matt, v., 21 ; comp. ver. 27, 33. — "Ye have heard that it was 
said by them of old time." This rendering oflppidrj toIq upyai-- 
oiq is grammatically defensible, while yet there can be no 
reasonable doubt that " to them of old time," which was in 
all the preceding versions, but which our translators have dis- 
missed to the margin, ought to resume its place in the text. 
The four following passages, Rom. ix., 12, 26 ; Rev. vi., 11 ; 
ix., 4, are decisive in regard of the usage of the New Testa- 
ment, and that we have here a dative, not an ablative. 

Matt, ix., 36. — " They fainted and were scattered abroad, as 
sheep having no shepherd." But "scattered abroad" does 
not exactly express eppifxjjievoi, any more than does the Lu- 
ther's "zerstreut." It is not their dispersion one from an- 
other, but their prostration in themselves, which is intended. 



ON SOME BETTER RENDERINGS FORSAKEN, ETC. 109 

The eppi/jifxevoL are the "prostrati," "temere projecti;" those 
that have cast themselves along for very weariness, unable 
to travel any farther ; comp. Judith xiv., 15, LXX. The Vul- 
gate has it rightly, "jacentes," which Wicliffe follows, "ly- 
ing down." Our present rendering dates as far back as Tyn- 
dale, who probably got it from Luther, and it was retained in 
the subsequent versions, while the correct meaning is rele- 
gated to the margin. 

Matt, x.,16. — "Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harm- 
less as doves." Wicliffe, following the Yulgate, had " simple 
as doves." " Simple" our translators have dismissed to the 
margin ; they ought to have kept it in the' text, as rightly 
they have done at Rom. xvi., 19. The rendering of adpawg 
by "harmless" here, and at Phil, ii., 15, grows out of wrong 
etymology, as though it were from a and Kepag, one having no 
horn with which to push or otherwise hurt. Thus Bengel, 
who falls in with this error, glosses here : "Sine comu, ungu- 
la, dente, aculeo." But this " without horn" would be aicipd- 
roc, while the true derivation of adpaiog, it need hardly be 
said, is from a and Kepavvv/ii, unmingled, sincere, and thus sin- 
gle, guileless, simple, without all folds. How much finer the 
antithesis in this way becomes. "Be ye therefore wise" ("pru- 
dent" would be better) " as serpents, and simple as doves"* 
— having care, that is, that this prudence of yours do not de- 
generate into artifice and guile; letting the columbine sim- 
plicity go hand in hand with the serpentine prudence. The 
exact parallel will then be 1 Cor. xiv., 20. 

Mark vi., 20. — "For Herod feared John, knowing that he 
was a just man and an holy, and observed him." This may 
be after Erasmus, who renders cal ffWErrjpet aWov " et magni 
earn faciebat ;" so, too, Grotius and others. Now it is un- 
doubtedly true that avv~t)p€iv ra £t«ua (Polybius, iv., 60, 10) 
would be rightly translated " to observe things righteous ;" 

* It is worthy of notice that Jeremy Taylor's great sermons on this text 
are severally entitled "Of Christian Prudence" and "Of Christian Simplicity" 
— a quiet rectification of the English text in the sense which is urged above. 



HO TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTA3IENT. 

but here it is not things, but a person, and no such rendering 
is admissible. Translate rather, as in our margin, " kept him 
or saved him," that is, from the malice of Herodias; she laid 
plots for the Baptist's life, but up to this time Herod avverfipei, 
sheltered or preserved him (" custodiebat eum," the Vulgate 
rightly), so that her malice could not reach him; see Ham- 
mond, in loco. It will at once be evident in how much strict- 
er logical sequence the statement of the evangelist will fol- 
low if this rendering of the passage is admitted. 

Mark vii.,4. — "The washing of cups and pots, brazen ves- 
sels, and of tables" This can not be correct : our translators 
have put "beds" in the margin, against which rendering of 
kKiv&v nothing can be urged except that the context points 
clearly here to these in a special aspect, namely, to the "bench- 
es" or " couches" on which the Jews reclined at their meals. 

Luke xvii., 21. — "The kingdom of heaven is icithin you" 
Doubtless evtoq hfxu>i> may mean this ; but how could the Lord 
address this language to the Pharisees? A very different 
kingdom from the kingdom of heaven was within them, not 
to say that this whole language of the kingdom of heaven be- 
ing within men, rather than men being within the kingdom 
of heaven, is, as one has justly observed, modern. The mar- 
ginal reading, " among you," should have been the textual. 
"He in whom the whole kingdom of heaven is shut up as in 
a germ, and from whom it will unfold itself, stands in your 
midst." 

John xiv., 18. — " I will not leave you comfortless." Upon 
these words Archdeacon Hare observes : "What led our trans- 
lators, from Tyndale downward, to render ovk afrjaio v^xag opcjxx- 
vovq by c I will not leave you comfortless] I can not perceive. 
Wicliffe has ' fadirless.' ' Orphans,' the marginal reading, 
ought to have been received into the text, for the force and 
beauty of the original are much impaired by the change."* 
If there was a difficulty working in their minds, namely, how 
his departure could be said to leave them " orphans" or "fa- 

* Mission of the Comforter^. 527. 



OX S031E BETTER REXDERIXGS FORSAKEX, ETC. m 

therless" he being rather " the first-born among many breth- 
ren" there was " destitute" and "desolate," either of which 
would have been nearer to the original than " comfortless" is. 

John xvi., 8. — "And when he is come, he will reprove the 
world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." We 
have, perhaps, nowhere in our version more reason to regret 
than here that the marginal reading " convince" has not 
changed places with the textual " reprove" — that " convince" 
is not in the text, and "reprove," if it had been thought de- 
sirable to retain it at all, in the margin. It need hardly be 
observed what a depth of meaning there is, or may be, in 
Wiyyziv — and being ascribed to the Holy Ghost, we must not 
stop short of the fullest and deepest meaning that the word 
will bear — how much more than is expressed by " reprove." 
It is not to " reprove" alone, but to bring home to the con- 
science of the reproved man, however unwilling he may be 
to admit it, a sense of the truth of the charge ; and all this, 
or nearly all this, our word " convince" expresses, or might 
be brought to express. Samuel reproved Saul of sin (1 Sam. 
xv., 19, 20), Xathan convinced David (2 Sam. xii., 7-13), and, 
though less effectually, Elijah convinced Ah^h (1 Kings xxi., 
27-29). How much more glorious a work this to ascribe to 
the Holy Ghost than that other ! Indeed, it is properly his 
work, and his only ; no man has in the highest sense been 
convinced of sin unless He has wrought the conviction.* 

Col. ii., 18. — " Let no man beguile you of your reward" It 

is evident that this tca-appafjevi-u) v/jdc seriously perplexed all 

our early translators, and, indeed, others besides them. Thus 

in the Italic we find " vos superet ;" in the Vulgate, " vos de- 

cipiat ;" Tyndale translates, " make you shoot at a wrong 

mark ;" the Geneva," wilfully bear rule over you ;" while our 

translators have proposed as an alternative reading to that 

% 
* All familiar with Archdeacon Hare's Mission of the Comforter will re- 
member how much of excellent there is there upon this point in the text, p. 
35-40, and in the long and learned note, which is appended to the text, what 
there is more valuable stilly p. 528-544. 



112 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

which they admit into the text, "judge against you." The 
objection to this last, which marks more insight into the true 
character of the word than any which went before, is that it 
is too obscure, and does not sufficiently tell its own story. 
The meaning of (jpafjeveiv is to adjudge a reward; of cara- 
fipafleveiv, out of a hostile mind (this is implied in the Kara) 
to adjudge it away from a person, with the subaudition that 
this is the person to whom it is justly due. Jerome (ad Al- 
gas.jQu, 10) does not quite seize the meaning, for he regards 
the Karafjpafievu)v as the competitor who unjustly bears away, 
not the judge who unjustly ascribes the reward ; otherwise 
his explanation is good : " Nemo adversum vos bravium ac- 
cipiat : hoc enim Grsece dicitur KarajopafjEviTw, quum quis in 
certamine positus, iniquitate agonothetse, vel insidiis magis- 
trorum, fipafjelov et palmam sibi debitam perdit." It is im- 
possible for any English word to express the fullness of allu- 
sion contained in the original Greek, while long circumlocu- 
tions, which should turn the version, in fact, into a comment- 
ary, are clearly inadmissible. If "judge against you" is at 
once too obscure and too little of an English idiom, and 
"judge away the reward from you" might be objected against 
on at least the second of these grounds, the substitution of 
" deprive" for " beguile" (which last has certainly no claim 
to stand) would, in case of a revision, be desirable. 

1 Thess. iv., 6. — " Let no man go beyond or defraud his 
brother in any matter" But ra here is not =™=rm, which 
, would alone justify the rendering of iv rw irpayfia-i^ "in any 
matter." A more correct translation is in the margin, name- 
ly, " in the matter," that is, " in this matter," being the mat- 
ter with which the apostle at the moment has to do. The 
difference may not seem very important, but, indeed, the 
whole sense of the passage turns on this word ; and, as we 
translate in one way or the other, we determine £di* ourselves 
whether it is a warning against overreaching our neighbor, 
and a too shrewd dealing with him in the business transac- 
tions of life, strangely finding place in the midst of warnings 



ON S02IE BETTER RENDERINGS FORSAKEN, ETC. 113 

against uncleanness and a libertine freedom in the relation 
of the sexes, or whether an unbroken warning against this 
latter evil is continued through all these verses (3-9). I can 
not doubt that the latter is the correct view; that to H-pay/ua 
is a euphemism, and our marginal version the right one ; the 
apostle warning his Thessalonian converts that none, in a 
worse TrXeovefya than that which makes one man covet his 
neighbor's goods, overstep the limits and fences by which 
God has hedged round and separated from him his brother's 
wife. See Bengel, m loco. Accepting this view of the pas- 
sage," overreach," which the margin suggests instead of" de- 
fraud" as the rendering of ttXeovekteIv, would also be an un- 
doubted improvement. 

Heb. v.,2. — "Who can have compassion on the ignorant, 
and on them that are out of the way, for that he himself also 
is compassed with infirmity." But is, it may fairly be asked, 
"who can have compassion," the happiest rendering of fxerpio- 
iraQeiv cwafievog? and ought n£Tf)L07rade~iv to be thus taken as 
entirely synonymous with <rvjjnrad£~ti>? The words fxe-pLoiradElv, 
HE-pLOTradeta, belong to the terminology of the later schools of 
Greek philosophy, and were formed to express that moderate 
amount of emotion (the fie-plug Trao-xav) which the Peripa- 
tetics and others acknowledged as becoming a wise and good 
man, contrasted with the airaOeia, or absolute indolency, which 
the Stoics required. It seems to me that the apostle would 
say that the high-priest taken from among men, out of a sense 
of his own weakness and infirmity, was in a condition to es- 
timate mildly and moderately, and not transported with in- 
dignation, the sins and errors of his brethren ; and it is this 
view of the passage which is correctly expressed in the mar- 
gin : " who can reasonably bear icith the ignorant," etc. 

2 Pet. iii., 12. — "Hasting unto the coming of the day of 
God." The Vulgate had in like manner rendered the <nrEvhv- 
reg tt}v Trapovaiai', " properantes in adventum ;" and this use 
of (TT-EvcELv may be abundantly justified, although " hasting 
toward the coming" seems to me to express more accurately 



114 TRENCH ON A TJTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

what our translators probably intended, and what the word 
allows. This will then be pretty nearly De Wette's " er- 
sehnend." Yet the marginal version, "hasting the coming" 
(" accelerantes adventum," Erasmus), seems better still. The 
faithful, that is, shall seek to cause the day of the Lord to 
come the more quickly by helping to fulfill those conditions, 
without which it can not come — that day being no day inex- 
orably fixed, but one the arrival of which it is free to the 
Church to help and hasten on by faith and by prayer, and 
through a more rapid accomplishing of the number of the 
elect (Matt, xxiv., 14). 



O^V" S03IE ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR. n 5 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR. 

I have already spoken of the English Grammar of our 
translators ; but the Greek Grammar is also occasionally at 
fault. The most recurring blemishes which have been noted 
here are these : 1. A failing to give due heed to the presence 
or absence of the article ; they omit it sometimes when it is 
present in their original, and when, according to the rules of 
the language, it ought to be preserved in the translation ; 
they insert it when it is absent there, and has no claim to ob- 
tain admission from them. 2. A certain laxity in the render- 
ing of prepositions ; for example, iv is rendered as if it were 
elg, and vice versa; the different forces of t)ta, as it governs a 
genitive or an accusative, are disregarded ; with other negli- 
gences of the same kind. 3. A want of accurate discrimina- 
tion of the forces of different tenses; aorists being dealt with 
as perfects, perfects as aorists ; imperfects losing their im- 
perfect, incompleted sense. Moods, too, and voices are occa- 
sionally confounded. 4. Other grammatical lapses, which can 
not be included in 'any of these divisions, are noticeable. 
These, however, are the most serious and most recurring. I 
will give examples of them all. 

I. In regard of the Greek article our translators err both 
in excess and defect, but oftenest in the latter. They omit 
it, and sometimes not without serious loss, in passages where 
it ought to find place. Such a passage is Rev. vii., 14: 
" These are they which came out of great tribulation." 
Rather "out of the great tribulation" (« rrjg OXlxpeuyg rijg /xe- 
yaArje). The leaving out of the article, so emphatically re- 
peated, causes us to miss the connection between this passage 
and Matt, xxiv., 22, 29 ; Dan. xii., 1. It is the character of 
the Apocalypse, the crowning book of the Canon, that it 



116 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

abounds with allusions to preceding Scriptures; and, numer- 
ous as are those that appear on the surface, those which lie a 
little below the surface are more numerous still. Thus there 
can be no doubt that allusion is here to " the great tribula- 
tion" (the same phrase, QXi-^oig fieyaXri) of the last days, the 
birth-pangs of the new creation, which our Lord in his proph- 
ecy from the Mount had foretold. 

Heb. xi.,10. — "He looked for a city which hath founda- 
tions." Not so ; the language is singularly emphatic : " He 
looked for the city which hath the foundations" (r r\ v rovg 6e- 
fieXiovg exovaav 7r6\u>), that is, the well-known and often al- 
luded to foundations — in other words, he looked for the New 
Jerusalem, of which it had been already said, " Her founda- 
tions are in the holy mountains" (Psa. lxxxvii., 1 ; comp. Isa. 
xxviii., 16) ; even as in the Apocalypse great things are spo- 
ken of these glorious foundations of the heavenly city (Rev. 
xxi., 14, 19, 20). Let me here observe that those expositors 
seem to me to be wholly astray who make the apostle to say 
that Abraham looked forward to a period when the nomad 
life which he was now leading should cease, and his descend- 
ants be established in a well-ordered city, the earthly Jerusa- 
lem. He may, indeed, have looked on to that as a pledge of 
better things to come, but never to that as " the City having 
the foundations ;" nor do I suppose for an instant that our 
translators at all intended this ; but still, if they had repro- 
duced the force of the article, they would, in giving the pas- 
sage its true emphasis, have rendered such a misapprehension 
on the part of their readers well-nigh impossible. 

John iii., 10. — "Art thou a teacher of Israel, and knowest 
not these things ?" Middleton may perhaps make too much 
of 6 hihcKTKaXoQ here, as though it singled out Nicodemus from 
among all the Jewish doctors as the one supereminent. Yet 
it is equally incorrect to deny it all force. Christ, putting 
him to a wholesome shame, would make him feel how little 
the realities of his spiritual insight corresponded with the 
reputation which he enjoyed. "Art thou the teacher, the 



OX SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR. jtf 

famed teacher of Israel, and yet art ignorant of these things?" 
and the question loses an emphasis, which I can not but be- 
lieve, with Winer and many more, it was intended to have, by 
the omission in our version of all notice of the article. 

Acts xvii., 1. — "They came to Thessalonica, where was a 
synagogue of the Jews." Grotius gives well the force of // 
awayioyi] here, which we have not preserved : "Articulus ad- 
ditus significat Philippis, Amphipoli et Apollonias nullas fu- 
isse synagogas, sed si qui ibi essent Judaai, eos synagogam 
adiisse Thessalonicensem." 

In other passages it is plain that a more complete mastery 
of the use of the article would have modified the rendering 
of a passage which our translators have given. It would 
have done so, I am persuaded, at 1 Tim. vi., 2 : "And they that 
have believing masters, let them not despise them, because 
they are brethren, but rather do them service, because they 
are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit" (on Tnarol 
elffi Kai aycnrrj-ol) ol rfjg evepyEviag avTiXaLijjavoLievoi). It is clear 
that for them " partakers of the benefit" is but a farther un- 
folding of "faithful and beloved " the "benefit" being: the 
grace and gift of eternal life, common to master and slave 
alike. But so the article in this last clause has not its rights, 
and the only correct translation of the passage will make 
ttigtoL teal ayairr)TOi the predicate, and ol Ttjc evepyEffiag avTikajx- 
fiavofxevoL the subject. St.Paul reminds the slaves that they 
shall serve believing masters the more cheerfully out of the 
consideration that they do not bestow their service on uncon- 
verted, unthankful lords, but rather that they who are " par- 
takers of the benefit," that is, the benefit of their service, they 
to whom this service is rendered, are brethren in Christ. 
The Vulgate rightly : " quia fideles sunt et dilecti, qui bene- 
ficii participes sunt." It needs only to insert the words 
" who are" before " partakers" to make our version correct. 

But more important than in any of these passages, as ren- 
dering serious doctrinal misunderstandings possible, is the 
neglect of the article at Rom. v., 15, 17. In place of any ob- 



118 TRENCH ON A JJTR. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

servations of my own, I will here quote Bentley's criticism 
on our version. Having found fault with the rendering of 

CD CD 

ol 7roXXo/, Rom. xii., 5, he proceeds: "This will enable us to 
clear up another place of much greater consequence, Rom. v., 
where, after the apostle had said, ver. 12, 'that by one man 
sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death 
passed upon all men (eIq -rravrag avQpioirovg), for that all have 
sinned,' in the recldition of the sentence, ver. 15, he says, 'for 
if, through the offence of one (rov hog), many (ol iroXXol) be 
dead' (so our translators), 'much more the grace of God by 
one man (rov kvdg) Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many'' 
(eIq tovq 7ro\\ovg). Now who would not wish that they had 
kept the. articles in the version which they saw in the origi- 
nal ? ' If, through the offence of the one' (that is, Adam), ' the 
many have died, much more the grace of God by the one man 
hath abounded unto the many.'' By this accurate version 
some hurtful mistakes about partial redemption and absolute 
reprobation had been happily prevented. Our English read- 
ers had then seen, what several of the fathers saw and testi- 
fied, that ot 7roXXo/, the many, in an antithesis to the one, are 
equivalent to Travreg, all, in ver. 12, and comprehend the whole 
multitude, the entire species of mankind, exclusive only of 
the one. So, again, ver. 18 and 19 of the same chapter, our 
translators have repeated the like mistake, where, when the 
apostle had said 'that as the offence of one was upon oilmen 
(dg navTag avQp^irovg) to condemnation, so the righteousness 
of one was upon all men to justification ; for,' adds he,' as by 
the one man's (rov tvbg) disobedience the many (ol 7ro\Xol) 
were made sinners, so by the obedience of the one (rov hog) 
the many (ol 7ro\\ol) shall be made righteous.' By this ver- 
sion the reader is admonished and guided to remark that the 
many, in ver. 19, are the same as navTEg, all, in the 18th. But 
our translators, when they render it ' many were made sin- 
ners, many were made righteous,' what do they do less than 
lead and draw their unwary readers into error ?"* 

* A Sermon vpon Popery. Works, vol. iii., p. 2-to : comp. p. 129. 



ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR. ng 

By far the most frequent fault with our translators is the 
omission of the article in the translation when it stands in the 
original ; yet sometimes they fall into the converse error, and 
insert an article in the English where it does not stand in the 
Greek, and this too, it may be, not without injury to the 
sense and intention of the sacred writer. It is so at Rom. ii., 
14, where we make St. Paul to say, "For when the Gentiles, 
which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in 
the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves." 
One might conclude from this that the apostle regarded such 
a fulfilling of the law on the part of the Gentiles as ordinary 
and normal. Yet it is not ra tdvrj, but tdvr), and the passage 
must be rendered, " For when Gentiles, which have not the 
law, etc.," the apostle having in these words his eye on the 
small election of heathendom, the exceptions, and not the rule. 

St.Paul has been sometimes charged with exaggeration in 
declaring that " the love of money is the root of all evil" (1 
Tim. vi., 10) ; and there have been attempts to mitigate the 
strength of the assertion, as that when he said " all evil" he 
only meant " much evil." The help, however, does not lie 
here, but in more strictly observing what he does say. " The 
love of money," he declares, " is" — not " the root," but — " a 
root, of all evil." He does not affirm that this is the bitter 
root from which all evil springs, but a bitter root from which 
all evil may spring ; there is no sin of which it may not be, 
as of which it has not been, the impulsive motive. 

Acts xxvi.J 2. — "The things whereof I am accused of the 
Jews" The insertion of the article in the English, where 
there is no article in the Greek, works still more injuriously 
here. St. Paul is made to account himself happy that he 
shall answer before King Agrippa of all things whereof he is 
"accused of the Jews." But he would not for an instant 
have affirmed or admitted that " the Jews" accused him ; all 
true Jews, all who held fast the promises made to the fathers, 
and now fulfilled in Christ, were on his side. It is true that 
he is accused " of Jews" unfaithful members of the house of 



120 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

Abraham, by no means " of the Jews." The force of ver. 7, 
in which our translators again make St.Paul to speak of be- 
ing " accused of the Jews" is still more seriously impaired. 
He there puts before Agrippa, a Jewish proselyte, and there- 
fore capable of understanding him, the monstrous, self-con- 
tradicting absurdity, that for cherishing and asserting the 
Messias-hope of his nation he should now be accused — not of 
heathens, that would have been nothing strange — but "of 
Jews" w T hen that hope was indeed the central treasure of the 
whole Jewish nation. The point of this part of his speech is 
not that he is accused, but that it is Jews who accuse him. 
Before leaving this point, I may observe that " a Hebrew of 
Hebrews" (Phil, iii., 5), one, namely, of pure Hebrew blood 
and language (Efipaiog c£'E/3,ocuW), while it is more accurate, 
would tell also its own story much better than "a Hebrew 
of the Hebrews," as we have it now. 

II. Our translators do not always seize the precise force of 
the prepositions. They have done so in the passages which 
follow : 

John iv., 6. — Jesus therefore being wearied with his jour- 
ney, sat thus on the well." It should be rather " by the well" 
(ettI rij rrvyy, in its immediate neighborhood. On two other 
occasions, namely, Mark xiii., 29 ; John v., 2, they have right- 
ly gone back from the more vigorous rendering of siri with a 
dative, to which they have here adhered : comp. Exod. ii., 
15,LXX* 

Rev. xv., 2. — "And I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mingled 
with fire ; and them that had gotten the victory over the 
beast .... stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of 
God." It is easy to perceive the inducements w r hich led our 
translators to render e-tt! tyjv SakafTvav ty\v vaXivriv " on the 
sea of glass ;" yet much is lost thereby, namely, the whole al- 
lusion to the earlier triumph by the shores of the Red Sea, 
typical of this the final triumph of the Church, when the lit- 

* Yet it ought to be said that Winer (Gramm., § 52, c.) is on the side of 
our version as it stands. 



ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR. 121 

sral Israel sang "the song of Moses" (Exod. xv., 1), a song 
which never grows old, for God is evermore triumphing glo- 
riously, and which his saints are now at length taking up 
again. It is, as Bengel gives it rightly, "by the sea of glass" 
(" ad mare vitreum"), which " sea of glass" we are not to un- 
derstand as a solid though diaphanous surface, on which these 
triumphant ones stood or could stand, but " as it were a sea 
of glass" — not a " glassen," but a " glassy" sea — a sea that 
might be compared to glass in its clearness and transparen- 
3y. God's judgments, his government of the Church and the 
world, this is the great deep, the mystical sea (Psa. xxxvi., 1), 
on the shores of which his saints stand triumphantly at the 
2nd, while his enemies are swallowed up beneath its waves — 
14 a sea as of glass," inasmuch as it is the visible utterance of 
his holiness, and shall at the last appear such, clear and trans- 
parent to all — but " as of glass mingled with fire" seeing that 
the wrath and indignation of God against sin, of which wrath 
fire is the standing symbol in Scripture, find their utterance, 
no less than his love, in the world's story. 

Heb. vi., 7. — " Herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed." 
The translators give in the margin as an alternative "for 
whom." But it is no mere alternative ; of hi ovg (not &' uv) it 
is the only rendering which can be admitted. What actual- 
ly stands in the text, besides being faulty in grammar, dis- 
turbs the spiritual image which underlies the passage. The 
heart of man is here the earth ; man is the dresser ; but the 
spiritual culture goes forward, not that the earth may bring 
forth that which is meet for him, the dresser by whom, but 
for God, the owner of the soil,/br whom, it is dressed. The 
plural li ovg, instead of di oV, need not trouble us, nor remove 
us from this, the only right interpretation. The earlier Lat- 
in version had it rightly; see Tertullian, De JPudic, c. 20: 
" Terra enim quae .... peperit herbam aptam his, propter 
quos et colitur, etc. ;" but the Vulgate, " a qnibus" antici- 
pates our mistake, in which we only follow the English trans- 
lations preceding. 



122 TRENCH ON A JJTR. VERSION OF NE W TESTAMENT. 

Luke xxiii., 42. — "And lie said unto him, Lord, remember 
me when thou comest into thy 'kingdom.' 1 '' But how, it may 
be asked, could our Lord come into his kingdom when he is 
himself the centre of the kingdom, and brings the kingdom 
with him, so that where he is, there the kingdom must be ? 
The passage will gain immensely when, leaving that strange 
and utterly unwarranted assumption that tig, a preposition 
of motion (whither), is convertible with eV, a preposition of 
rest (where), and thus that iv rrj jjaaikdq., .which stands here, 
is the same as elg rr)v fiaaiXeiav, we translate, " Lord, remem- 
ber me when thou comest in thy kingdom" that is," with all 
thy glorious kingdom about thee," as is so sublimely set forth, 
Rev. xix.,14; comp. Jude 14; 2 Thess. i., 7; Matt, xxv., 31 
(ev rrj &>£>/). It is the stranger that our translators should 
have fallen into this error, seeing that they have translated 
epyj^zvov kv rj7 jSamXeia alrov (Matt, xvi., 28) quite correctly: 
" coming in his kingdom." The Vulgate also has " in regno 
tuo" there, although it shares the error of our translation, 
and has " in regnum tuum" here. The exegetical tact of Mal- 
donatus overcomes on this, as on many other occasions, his 
respect for his " authentic" Vulgate, and he comments thus : 
"Itaque non est sensus, Cum veneris ad regnandum, sed, Cum 
veneris jam regnans, cum veneris non ad acquirendum reg- 
num, sed regno jam acquisito, quemadmodum venturus ad ju- 
dicium est." The same faulty rendering of eV, and assump- 
tion that it may have the force of e lg, that k v x<V tri means the 
same as elg x^P lv ^ occurs Gal. i., 6 ; and indeed this, or the 
converse, in many other passages as well.f 

* Some good words on this matter are found in Windischmann's Com- 
mentary oh this Epistle, in loco: '' iv x^P lTl wir( l zumeist mit Sia x&P'-toQi 
oder (mit Berufung auf Eph. iv., 4) tig %apira (Vulg., 'in gratiam') identisch 
genommen, ist aber significativer und bezeichnet, dass der Euf nicht bloss 
zur Gnade Christi ergeht, sondern in der Gnade des Heilandes, d. h. der von 
ihm verdienten und von ihm als dem Haupte austromenden (Rom. v., 15) 
wurzelt, dass die Auserw'ahlung der Berufenen in der Gnade des Auserwahl- 
ter tear i^oxhv beschlossen ist (Eph. i., 4)." 

f See Winer's Gramm. , § 54, 4, where he enters at length into the question 
whether elg is ever used for t?;,or li> for tig, in the New Testament. Notwith- 



ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR. 



123 



2 Cor. xi., 3.. — "But I fear lest . . . your minds should be 
corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ" (d-6 ffjg ct7r\o- 
ty]toq Tijc slg tuv XpiaTov) . Here again the injurious supposi- 
tion that els and iv may be confounded has been at work, and 
to serious loss in the bringing out of the meaning of the pas- 
sage. The cnrXorriQ here is the simple, undivided affection, 
the singleness of heart of the Bride, the Church, elg XotoroV, to- 
loard Christ. It is not their " simplicity in Christ" or Chris- 
tian simplicity, which the apostle fears lest they may, through 
addiction to worldly wisdom, forfeit and let go ; but, still 
moving in the images of espousals and marriage, that they 
may not bring a simple undivided heart to Christ. If after 
u7rX6rr)TOQ we should also read koi rrje uyvoT-qTog^ which seems 
probable, it will then be clearer still what St. Paul's intention 
was. 

2 Pet. i., 5-7. — " Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue 
knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance 
patience, and to patience godliness, etc." (eirixopvywa-e iv -/] 
Triers vjjlCjv rrjv apET)]i>, k.t.X.). Tyndale had rendered the pas- 
sage, "In your faith minister virtue, and in your virtue knowl- 
edge," etc., and all translations up to the Authorized had 
followed him. Henry More* has well expressed the objec- 
tion to the present version : " Grotius would have iv to be 
redundant here, so that his suffrage is for the English trans- 
lation. But, for my own part, I think that iv is so far from 
being redundant that it is essential to the sentence, and in- 
terposed that we might understand a greater mystery than 
the mere adding of so many virtues one to another, which 
would be all that could be expressly signified if iv were left 
out. But the preposition here signifying causality, there is 
more than a mere enumeration of those divine graces ; for 

standing the original identity of the two prepositions, etc being only another 
form of Iv, and the many passages which seem to make for their indiscrimi- 
nate use, as Matt. x. , 1 6 ; Luke vii. ,17; Matt, ii., 23 ; John ix. , 7 ; or, again, 
the comparison of Matt, xxi., 8 with Mark xi., 8, or Mark i.,16 with Matt, 
iv., 18, he affirms that in one the sense of motion is always inherent, in the 
other of rest. * On Godliness, b. viii., c. 3. 

Aa 



124 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

there is also implied how naturally they rise one out of an- 
other, and that they have a causal dependence one of anoth- 
er." See this same thought beautifully carried out in detail 
by Bengel, in loco. 

III. Our translators do not always give the true force of 
tenses, moods, and voices. . 

Oftentimes the present tense is used in the New Testament, 
especially by St. John in the Apocalypse, to express the eter- 
nal Now of him for whom there can be no past and no fu- 
ture. It must be considered a fault when this is let go, and 
exchanged for a past tense in our version. Take, for instance, 
Rev. iv., 5 : "Out of the throne 2^oceeded lightnings, and thun- 
derings, and voices." But it is much more than this; not 
merely at that one moment w T hen St. John beheld, but ever- 
more out of his throne proceed {kK-KopsvovTai) these symbols of 
the presence and of the terrible majesty of God. Through- 
out this chapter, and at chapter i., 14-16, there is often a 
needless, and sometimes an absolutely. incorrect, turning of 
the present of eternity into the past of time. 

Elsewhere a past is turned without cause into a present. 
It is so at Acts xxviii., 4 : ". No doubt this man is a murder- 
er, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet Vengeance 
svffereth not to live." A fine turn in the exclamation of these 
barbarous islanders has been missed in our version, and in 
all the English versions except the Geneva. The fiapfiapoi, 
the " natives," as I think the word might have been fairly 
translated, who must have best known the qualities of the 
vipers then existing on the island, are so confident of the 
deadly character of that one which has fastened itself on 
Paul's hand, that they regard and speak of him as one already 
dead, and in this sense use a past tense ; he is one whom 
"Vengeance suffered not (ohic eia^v) to live." Bengel : "JYon 
sivit; jam nullum putant esse Paulum;" De Wette : "nicht 
hat leben lassen." Let me observe here, by the way, that 
our modern editions of the Bible should not have dropped 
the capital V with which " Vengeance" was spelt in the ex- 



ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR. 12 5 

emplar edition of 1611. These islanders, in their simple but 
most truthful moral instincts, did not contemplate " Ven- 
geance," or A/07, m the abstract, but personified her as a god- 
dess ; and our translators, who are by no means prodigal of 
their capitals, in their manner of spelling the word, did their 
best to mark and reproduce this personification of the di- 
vine Justice, although the carelessness of printers has since 
let it go. 

Elsewhere there is confusion between the uses of the pres- 
ent and the perfect. There is such, for example, at Luke 
xviii., 12 : "I give tithes of all that I possess." But 60a kt&- 
fxat is not " all that I possess" but " all that I acquire" (" quae 
mihi acquiro, quae mihi redeunt"). The Vulgate, which has 
" possideo," shares, perhaps suggested, our error. In the per- 
fect KEKTrifiat the word first obtains the force of" I possess," 
or, in other words, "I have acquired."* The Pharisee would 
boast himself to be, so to say, another Jacob, such another as 
he who had said, " Of all that thou shalt give me, I will sure- 
ly give the tenth unto thee" (Gen. xxviii., 22 ; comp. xiv., 20), 
a careful performer of that precept of the law which said, 
"Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the 
field bringeth forth year by year" (Deut. xiv., 22) ; but change 
" acquire" into " possess," and how much of this we lose. 

We must associate with this passage another, namely, Luke 
xxi.,19: "In your patience 2wssess ye your souls;" for the 
same correction ought there to find place. It is rather, " In 
your patience make ye your souls your own" — that is, " In 
and by your patience or endurance acquire your souls as 
something which you may indeed call your own" (" salvas 
obtinete"). Thus Winer: "Durch Ausdauer erwerbt euch 
eure Seelen; sie werden dann erst euer wahres, unverlier- 
bares Eigenthum werden." It is noticeable that our trans- 
lators have corrected the " possess" of all the preceding ver- 
sions at Matt, x., 9, exchanging this for the more accurate 
" provide" {K-rjariade), or, as it is in the margin, " get," which 
* See Winer, Gramm., § 41, 4. 



126 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

makes it strange that they should have allowed it in these 
other places to stand. 

Imperfects lose their proper force, and are dealt with as 
aorists and perfects. The vividness of the narration often 
suffers from the substitution of the pure historic for what 
may be called the descriptive tense ; as, for example, at Luke 
xiv.,7: "He put forth a parable to those that were bidden 
when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms." Read, 
" how they were choosing out (e^eXeyovro) the chief rooms" — 
the sacred historian placing the Lord's utterance of the para- 
ble in the midst of the events which he is describing. So 
Acts iii.j 1 : " Now Peter and John went up together into the 
Temple." Read, " were going up" {avifiaivov). Again, Mark 
ii., 18 : "And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used 
to fast." Read, " were fasting" (i\<rav vqaTtvovreo)^ namely, at 
that very time, which gives a special vigor to their remon- 
strances ; they were keeping a fast while the Lord's disciples 
were celebrating a festival. The incomplete imperfect sense, 
which so often belongs to this tense, and from which it de- 
rives its name, they often fail to give ; the commencement 
of a work which is not brought to a conclusion, the consent 
and co-operation of another party, which was necessary for 
its completion, having been withheld ; in such cases the will 
is taken for the deed.* Thus Luke i.,59 : "And they called 
him Zacharias." It is not so, for Elizabeth would not allow 
this name to be given him ; but with the true force of the in- 
complete imperfect tense : "And they were calling (ekoXovv) 
him Zacharias." Once more, Luke v., 6 : "And their net 
brake." Had this been so, they would scarcely have secured 
the fishes at all. Rather, " was in the act of breaking," or 
"was at the point to break" {lupp^yvvTo). Other passages 
where they do not give the force of the imperfect, but deal 
with it as though it had been a perfect or an aorist, are John 
iii., 22 ; iv., 47 ; vi., 21 ; Luke xxiv., 32 ; Matt, xiii., 34 ; Acts 
xi.,20. 

* See Jelf 's Kuhner's Grammar, § 398, 2. 



ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR. 12 7 

Aorists are rendered as if they were perfects, and perfects 
as if they were aorists. Thus we have an example of the 
first, Luke i., 19, where a-KEaruX-nv is translated as though it 
were airetrraXjiai, " I am sent," instead of "I was sent." Ga- 
briel contemplates his mission, not at the moment of its pres- 
ent fulfillment, but from that of his first sending forth from 
the presence of God. Another example of the same occurs 
at 2 Pet. i.,14: "Knowing that shortly I must put off this 
my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed 
me." By this "hath showed me" we lose altogether the 
special allusion to an historic moment in the apostle's life, to 
John xxi., 18, 19, which would at once come out if eh'jXaxri pot 
had been rendered "showed me." Doubtless there are pas- 
sages which would make difficult the universal, application 
of the rule that perfects should be translated as perfects, and 
aorists as aorists: thus Luke xiv., 18, 19, where one might 
hesitate in rendering jjyopaaa " I bought" instead of " I have 
bought /" and some at least in the long line of aorists, ehofaaa 
ercXttWa, ecpavepwaa, eXafiov (ver. 4, 6, 8), in the high-priestly 
prayer, John xvii. Still, on these passages no conclusion can 
be grounded that the writers of the New Testament did not 
always observe the distinction.* 

Again, the force of the aorist is missed, though in another 
way, at Mark xvi., 2, where avareiXavroQ rov ijXiov is translated 
"at the rising of the sun." It can only be "when the sun 
icas risen." Did the anxiety to avoid a slight seeming dis- 
crepancy between this statement and that of two other evan- 
gelists (Matt, xxviii., 1 ; John xx., 1) modify the translation 
here ? 

Examples, on the other hand, of perfects turned into aorists 
are frequent. Thus, at Luke xiii., 2 : " Suppose ye that these 
Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they 
suffered such things ?" Rather, " because they have suffered 
(nETrovdcHTiv) such things." Our Lord contemplates the catas- 
trophe in which they perished, not as something belonging 
* See Winer, Gramm., § 41, 5. 



128 THENCE ON A UTE. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

merely to the historic past, but as a fact reaching into the 
present, still vividly presenting itself to the mind's eye of his 
hearers. 

One other example must suffice. In that great doctrinal 
passage, Col. i., 13-22, St. Paul declares, ver. 16, that "by 
Christ were all things created." The aorist UrlaQr) has its 
right force given to it here;. but the apostle in a most re- 
markable way, when in the last clause of the verse he re- 
sumes the doctrine of the whole, changes the aorist kriaOr} 
for the perfect ektIotcli. And why ? Because he is no longer 
looking at the one historic act of creation, but at the perma- 
nent results flowing on into all time and eternity therefrom. 
Our translators have not followed him here, but, as if no 
change had been made, they render this clause also, "All 
things were created by him and for him," but read rather, 
"All things have been created hj him and for him."* 

Imperfects and aorists are turned without necessity into 
pluperfects. It is admitted by all that an aorist, under cer- 
tain conditions, may have this sense of a past behind another 
past;f nor, according to some, can this force be altogether 
denied to the imperfect; but a pluperfect force is given in 
our version to these tenses where certainly no sort of neces- 
sity requires it. Thus, for the words, " because he had done 
these things on the Sabbath" (John v., 16), read, " because he 
did (sTroiei) these things on the Sabbath." And, again, in the 
same chapter read, " for Jesus conveyed himself away" {klivzv- 
aev) ; that is, as soon as this discussion between the Jews and 
the healed man arose, not "had conveyed himself away" pre- 
viously, as our version would imply. 

Neither do our translators always give its right force to a 
middle verb. They fail to do so at Phil, ii., 15: "Among 

* The fact that we almost all learn our grammar from the Latin, and that 
in the Latin the perfect indicative does its own duty and that of the aorist as 
well, renders us very inobservant of inaccuracies in this particular kind till we 
have been specially trained to observe them. 

t What these conditions are, see Winer's Gramm., § 41, 5. 



ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR. 



129 



whom ye shine as lights in the world." To justify this "ye 
shine" which is common to all the versions of the English 
Hexapla, St. Paul ought to have written (paLveTe, and not tyal- 
vevde, as he has written. *a/i'«j/, indeed, is " to shine" (John 
i., 5 ; 2 Pet. i., 19; Rev. L, 16), but 0cuW0at " to appear" (Matt, 
xxiii., 27 ; 1 Pet. iv., 18 ; James for., 14). It is worthy of note, 
that while the Vulgate, having " lucetis," shares and antici- 
pates our error, an earlier Italic version was free from it, as 
is evident from the verse as quoted by Augustine (JEnarr. in 
Psa. cxlvi., 4) : "In quibus apparetis tanquam luminaria in 
mundo." 

Sometimes the force of a passive is lost. Thus is it at 2 
CorTv.,10: "For we must all appear before the judgment 
seat of Christ." The words contain a yet more solemn and 
awful announcement than this : " For w r e must all be made 
manifest" {iravTaq i)fidg ^avepuQiivai Set), exhibited as what 
we indeed are, displayed in our true colors, the secrets of our 
hearts disclosed, and w T e, so to speak, turned inside out (for 
the word means nothing less) " before the judgment seat of 
Christ." There is often reason to think that the exposition 
of Chrysostom exercised considerable influence on our trans- 
lators. Here it might have done so with benefit ; for, com- 
menting on these words (in Cor. Horn., 10), he says: ob yap 
irapacrrfjvai rjfxaQ cnrXwQ £e7, oXXa tcai (pavsptodrjvat, show- 
ing that he would not have been satisfied with w T hat our 
translators have here done. 

With one or two miscellaneous observations I will con- 
clude this chapter. It would be very impertinent to suppose 
that our translators, w T ho numbered in their company many 
of the first scholars of their time, were not perfectly at home 
in the use of 7rac, and familiar with the very simple modifica- 
tions of its meaning as employed with or without an article, 
and yet it must be owned that they do not always observe 
its rules. One example may suffice. 

Acts x., 12. — "Wherein were all manner of four-footed 
beasts of the earth." But -navva rh Te-pcnroda can not possibly 



130 TRENCH ON A TJTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

have the meaning ascribed to it here. Translate rather, 
" Wherein were all the four-footed beasts of the earth" — 
" omnia animalia," as the Vulgate rightly has it. Here prob- 
ably, as Winer observes, they were tempted to forsake the 
more accurate rendering from an unwillingness to ascribe 
something which seemed to them like exaggeration to the 
sacred historian : how, they said to themselves, could " all 
the four-footed beasts of the earth" be contained in that 
sheet? For, indeed, this shrinking from a meaning which an 
accurate translation would render up is a very frequent oc- 
casion of mistranslation, and also of warped exegesis. It is 
much better, however, that the translator should go forward 
on his task without regard to such considerations as these. 
The Word of God can take care of, and vindicate itself, and 
does not need to be thus taken under man's protection.* 

It is remarkable how little careful our translators are to 
note the difference between the verb of being and that of be- 
coming ; between elfj.1 and yiyova. I do not indeed think it 
possible to carry out the distinction between uvai and yivsa- 
6ai in every instance without occasional awkwardnesses of 
translation: it seems to me that Professor Ellicott has not 
quite escaped these, Ephes. v., V, 17 ; and that we must recog- 
nize at times a certain idiomatic use of yivov and ylveade, best 
represented by " be" and " be ye." Still the passages are nu- 
merous where the words can not be confounded, as our trans- 

* There are some good observations on this matter in Laurence Hum- 
phrey's excellent treatise Interpretatio Linguarum, seu de ratione convertendi 
auctores tarn sacros quam profanos. Basileas, 1559. He is finding fault with 
those who, in translating, seek to mitigate such expressions as the vKknpvvu of 
Rom. ix., 18, TrapLScoKs of Rom. i., 24, dotvkyKyc, of Matt, vi., 13, and says, 
"Non est locus hie interpretationibus nostro Marte et ingenio confictis, cum 
se Spiritus Sanctus exponit, optimus magister interpretandi, cujus linguam fas 
non est homini mutare aut temperare. Satis molliter loquitur, qui cum illo 
dure loquitur. Explicationis varietas relinquatur cuivis libera. Interpres 
hanc libertatem si tollat, bono jure non tollit, sed lectori facit injuriam." And 
elsewhere, against some who rendered the Trapsdojice above referred to, "per- 
misit, " he observes, ' ' Non est durum quod Spiritus Sanctus putarit non esse 
durum, nee frigidis hominum temperamentis sermo divinus modificandus," 
p. 174. 



ON SOME ERROES OF GREEK GRAMMAR. 131 

lators have confounded them, without loss. Thus, at Heb. 
v., 11, the apostle complains of the difficulty of unfolding 
some hard truths to those whom he addresses, " seeing ye are 
dull of hearing." But the rebuke is sharper than this — " see- 
ing ye have become dull of hearing" {k-Kei vudpol yeyovare 
tcuq iiKoalg). This would imply that it was not so once, in 
the former days, when they first were enlightened (x., 32), 
but that now they had gone back from that liveliness of spir- 
itual apprehension which once had been theirs (see Chrysos- 
tom). The Vulgate has it rightly : " Quoniam imbecilles/acZi 
estis ad audiendum ;" being followed by the Rh'eims : " Be- 
cause ye are become weak to hear;" so, too,De Wette: "Da 
ihr trage von Verstande geworden seid." Compare the next 
verse, where yeyovare again occurs, and where the force of it 
is given. At Matt, xxiv., 32, there is the same loss of the 
true force of the word. Not the being tender of the branch 
of the fig-tree, but the becoming tender, that is, through the 
returning sap of spring, is the sign of the nearness of summer. 

Nor are the occasions wanting when the maintenance of 
the distinction is far more important, as at John viii., 58. 
They make no attempt to preserve there the antithesis, dog- 
matically so important, between Abraham's birth in time, and 
Christ's subsistence through eternity (7rplp'A(3paafi yeriadat, kyio 
elm). How this should have been effected may be a ques- 
tion ; whether as Cranmer has done it, " Ere Abraham was 
born, I am," or as the Rhemish, " Before that Abraham was 
made, I am," or by some other device ; but in some form or 
other it should assuredly have been attempted. In the Vul- 
gate, " Antequam Abraham Jieret, ego sum."* 

In other points our translators are without fault, where yet 
the modern copies, by careless reproduction of their work, in- 
volve them in apparent error, which indeed is none of theirs, 

* Sydenham (The Arraignment of the Arian, p. 93) puts it well : "Was 
points only to a human constitution ; / am to a divine substance [qy. , sub- 
sistence] ; and therefore the original hath a yeveaOai for Abraham, and an 
el/xi for Christ." 



132 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

but that of the too careless guardians of their text. They 
have their own burden to bear; they ought not to be made 
to bear the burden of others ; but they do so in more places 
than one. Thus, at Matt, xii., 23, correcting all our previous 
translations, they gave the words ^ti ovtoq kanv 6 vldg Aafiid ; 
with perfect accuracy : " Is this the Son of David ?" fully 
understanding that, according to the different idioms of the 
Greek and English, the negative particle of the original was 
not to reappear in the English ; comp. Acts vii., 42 ; John 
viii., 22; xviii., 35. I am unable to say at what time the 
reading which appears in nearly all our modern Bibles, " Is 
not this the Son of David?" first crept in; it is already in 
Hammond, 1659; but it is little creditable to those who should 
have kept their text inviolate, that they have not exercised a 
stricter vigilance over it. It is curious that, having escaped 
error here, our translators should yet have fallen into it in 
the exactly similar phrase at John iv., 29, p/n ovtoq ecrnv 6 
Xpivroc ; where they do render " Is not this the Christ ?" but 
should have rendered " Is this the Christ ?" or " Can this be 
the Christ ?" The Samaritan woman, in her joy, as speaking 
of a thing too good to be true, which she will suggest, but 
dare not absolutely affirm, asks of her fellow-countrymen, "Is 
this the Christ ? — can this be he whom we have looked for 
so long ?" — expecting in reply, not a negative, but an affirm- 
ative answer. 

Let me take this occasion of observing that elsewhere we 
have to complain of a like carelessness. Thus there are pas- 
sages in which the punctuation of the exemplar edition of 
1611 gave an accurate rendering, while the subsequent aban- 
donment of that punctuation lends an appearance of incor- 
rectness to our version from which it is really free. Thus, in 
modern editions, we read at John xviii., 3, "Judas then, hav- 
ing received a band of men and officers from the chief priests 
and Pharisees, cometh." This would make the traitor to have 
received the "band of men" and the "officers" alike from 
the chief priests and Pharisees. Such was not the case ; the 



ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR. 133 

" band of men" were the Roman soldiers, whom he received 
from the Roman authorities, while the " officers" only, or offi- 
cials, as we should now say, he received from the chief priests 
and Pharisees. In the original edition there was a comma 
after " band of men," which has subsequently been dropped, 
and then all was correct. 

Being on this subject, I will call attention to another pas- 
sage where the original punctuation has been abandoned. It 
is Heb. xii., 23. All who have critically studied this epistle 
know that, in respect of this verse and that preceding, there 
is a much-debated question how the different clauses should 
be divided. Now I do not undertake to affirm that our trans- 
lators were right, though there is much to say for the scheme 
of the passage which they evidently favor ; but when they 
punctuated this verse as follows, " To the general assembly, 
and Church of the first-born which are written in heaven," 
they meant something different from that which the verse as 
it is now punctuated, " To the general assembly and Church 
of the first-born, which are written in heaven," means ; and 
their punctuation should not have been disturbed. The dis- 
turbing of it is, in fact, an unacknowledged revision of the 
translation. 



134 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ON SOME QUESTIONABLE RENDERINGS OF WORDS. 

There are a certain number of passages in which no one 
can charge our translators with error, the version they have 
given being entirely defensible, and numbering among its 
upholders some, it may be many, well worthy to be heard ; 
while yet another version, on the whole, will commend itself 
as preferable to that which they have adopted. I shall pro- 
ceed to adduce a few such passages, where, to me at least, it 
seems there is a higher probability, in some a far higher, in 
favor of some other translation rather than of that which 
they have admitted. 

Matt, vi., 27 ; comp. Luke xii., 25. — " Which of you by tak- 
ing thought can add one cubit unto his stature?" Erasmus 
was, I believe, the first who suggested that nXida here was 
not " stature," but " length of life." With him it was no 
more than a suggestion ; but it has since found acceptance 
with many, with Hammond, Wolf, Wetstein, Olshausen, Mey- 
er, and others. While the present translation may be abun- 
dantly justified— Fritzsche stands out for it still— yet this 
certainly appears far preferable to me, and for the following 
reasons : a. In that natural rhetoric of which our Lord was 
the great master, he would not have named a cubit, which is 
about a foot and a half, but some very small measure, and re- 
minded his hearers that they could not add even this to their 
stature. It would have scarcely been in the spirit of this 
rhetoric to ask, " Which of you with all his caring can make 
himself afoot taller than God has made him ?" Rather Christ 
would have demanded, " Which of you with all his anxious 
care can add an inch or a hair's breadth (eXaxiffTov, Luke xii., 
26) to his stature ?" />. Men do not practically take thought 



ON SOME QUESTIONABLE RENDERINGS OF WORDS. ] 35 

about adding to their stature ; it is not an object of anxiety 
to one in a thousand to be taller than God has made him ; 
this could scarcely, therefore, be cited as one of the vain so- 
licitudes of men. y. On the other hand, every thing exactly 
fits when we understand our Lord to be asking this question 
about life and the possibility of adding the least fraction to 
its length. The cubit, which is much when compared with a 
man's stature, is infinitesimally little, and therefore most ap- 
propriate when compared to his length of life, that life being 
contemplated as a course, or dpufxog (2 Tim. iv., *7), which he 
may attempt, but ineffectually, to prolong. S. And then, far- 
ther, this prolonging of life is something which men do seek, 
striving by various precautions, by solicitous care, to length- 
en the period of their mortal existence, to which yet they 
can not add so much as a single cubit more than has been 
apportioned to it by God. 

Luke ii.,49. — "Wist ye not that I must be about my Fa- 
thers business?" But kv toIq tov Uarpog w^ill as well mean 
"in my Father's house;" and if the words will mean this as 
well, they will surely mean it better. We shall thus have a 
more direct answer on the part of the child Jesus to the im- 
plied rebuke of his blessed mother's words, "Behold, thy fa- 
ther and I have sought thee sorrowing ;" to which he answers, 
" How is it that ye sought me ?" — that is, in any other place? 
"Wist ye not that I must be in my Fathers house — here in 
the Temple ? and here, without lengthened seeking, ye might 
have found me at once." There was a certain misconcep- 
tion in respect of his person and character which had led 
them to look for him in other places of resort rather than in 
the Temple. 

John xii., 6. — "He was a thief, and had the bag, and bare 
what w x as put therein." I can not but think that it was St. 
John's intention to say not merely that Judas "bare," but 
that he "bare away" purloined, or pilfered what was put into 
the common purse. It seems a tautology to say that he "had 
the bag, and bare what was put therein," unless indeed it is 



136 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

said that the latter clause was introduced to explain the op- 
portunities which he enjoyed of playing the thief; hardly, as 
it appears to me, a sufficient justification. On the other 
hand, the use of ficKFrafciv, not in the sense of "portare," but 
of "auferre," is frequent; it is so used by Josephus, Antiq. 
xiv., 7, 1, and in the New Testament, John xx., 15, and such, 
I am persuaded, is the use of it here. We note that already, 
in Augustine's time, the question had arisen which was the 
right way to deal with the words ; for, commenting on the 
" portabat" which he found in his Italic, as it has kept its 
place in the Vulgate, he asks, " Portabat, an exportabat ? Sed 
ministerio portabat, furto exportabat." Here he might seem 
to leave his own interpretation of the passage undecided; 
not so, however, at Ep. 108,3 : "Ipsi [apostoli] de illo scrip- 
serunt quod fur erat, et omnia quae mittebantur de dominicis 
loculis aiiferebat" After all is said, there will probably al- 
ways remain upholders of one translation and upholders of 
the other, yet to my mind the probabilities are much in favor 
of that version which I observe that the "Five Clergymen" 
have also adopted. 

Acts xvii., 1 8.—" What will this babbler say ?" " Babbler" 
here is very well, and yet I can not but feel that " chatterer" 
is the word. It unites by a singular felicity the two mean- 
ings that meet in <nreptio\6yoe, being, like it, at once the name 
of a bird, and a name given to a slight idle talker. ZTrep/do- 
\6yoQ is properly a little bird, so called from its gathering up 
of seeds. It is then by transfer, 1st, a mean person, who gets 
his living somewhat as this bird does, haunts corn-markets 
and other places of resort for the gathering up of the oifals 
and leavings there — like Autolycus, " a picker up of uncon- 
sidered trifles;" 2dly, one who idly chatters as this bird does. 
Some lines of Shakespeare so curiously illustrate this <nrepno- 
\6yoc, even to the image on which the word rests, that I can 
not resist quoting them. Of a slight talkative person it is said, 

" This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons peas, 
And utters it again when God doth please. 



ON SOME QUESTIONABLE RENDERINGS OF WORDS. 137 

He is wit's peddler, and retails his wares 

At wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs."* 

At the same time, it must always remain a question whether, 
leaving this of babbling or chattering altogether out, " pal- 
try fellow," or " base fellow," as in our margin, would not 
better express the intention of the word.f The curious and 
barbarous " seminiverbius" of the Vulgate, which reappears 
as " word-sower" in the Rhemish, rests evidently on a mis- 
reading of the word. It should be (nreipoXoyoc. — though in- 
deed XoyotnropoQ is the form which the word must have as- 
sumed to justify this. 

Rom. i., 26, 27. — I speak with hesitation, yet incline strong- 
ly to think that in this awful passage, where St. Paul dares 
to touch on two of the w T orst enormities of the heathen world, 
and with purest lips to speak, and that with all necessary 
plainness, of the impurest things, we should have clone well 
if we had followed even to the utmost where he would lead 
us. For " men" and " women," as often as the words occur 
in these verses, I should wish to see substituted " males" and 
" females ;" apaeyeg and dijXeiai are throughout the words which 
St.Paul employs. It is true that something must be indulged 
to the delicacy of modern Christian ears; our translators 
have evidently so considered in dealing with more than one 
passage in the Old Testament ; but, reading these verses over 
with this substitution, while they gain in emphasis, while they 
represent more exactly the terrible charge which St.Paul 
brings against the cultivated world of heathendom, they do 
not seem to me to acquire any such painful explicitness as 
they ought not to have, hardly more of this than they pos- 
sessed before. 

* Love's Labors Lost, Act v., sc. 1. 

t See an excellent article on (nrepixoXoyog in Suicer's Thesaurus. It is to 
this conclusion that Boisius, in a learned note in his able work, Veteris Inter- 
pretis cum Bezd aliisque Recentioribus Collatio, p. 428, arrives : ' ' Paulus airep- 
poXoyog audit a philosophis Atheniensibus non ut locutuleius aut blaterator 
aliquis, sed ut homo tenuissimce fortunse, parumque splendide vestitus. Est 
enim convicium in viles potius quam verbosos." 



138 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

1 Cor. xiii., 12. — " For now we see through a glass (%i tow- 
rpov), darkly." I can not but think that, for the avoiding of 
misconception, it would have been preferable, " For now we 
see by a glass, darkly," marking so that lia is here instru- 
mental. For what is the natural conclusion of every one 
who, without reference to the Greek, hears or reads the 
words as they now stand? What can it be but that they 
express an imperfect seeing through some dim, only semi- 
transparent medium, as talc, horn, crystal, lapis specularis, or 
the like, such as did for the ancients that service which glass 
now so much better accomplishes for us? This, however, it 
is needless to say, would be llonrpa or lioitrfjov y while ZaairTpov 
( = Karo7rrpov) can mean only a looking-glass; and when we 
remember the polished metallic mirrors, which were the only 
ones which antiquity knew, and the dim, obscure cnravycHTfia, 
which was all that they could have given back, we shall feel 
the exquisite fitness of this image, both in respect of the in- 
distinctness of the seeing, and in respect of its being, as is 
well said in the passage which follows, "no immediate vis- 
ion." That citation is drawn from an old English divine, 
less known than he deserves, and is much to the point : 
" Some that would be more critical than they need would 
fain show us a difference between looizrpov and Karoirrpov. Ka- 
ToirTpov indeed with them is a looking-glass, but laoirrpov is 
some other glass ; either such a one as is for the help of weak 
and aged eyes, and then 'tis, we see through spectacles ; or 
else such as presents the object though afar off, and so 'tis, 
we see through a perspective. The Vulgar Latin, that will 
have it per transennam, { through a lattice,' as the Spouse in 
the Canticles is said to flourish through the lattices. And 
all these urge the force of the preposition Bi iaoyrrpov, we see 
through a glass or through a lattice. But they might easily 
know that ZC eaoTrrpov here is the same as h kao-KTpw ; and 
though it be true that Karo-Krpov be the more usual wo^d for 
a looking-glass, yet it is true that 'hoirrpov signifies the same. 
Hesychius makes them synonymous, and the word is but 



ON S03IE QUESTIONABLE RENDERINGS OF WORDS. 139 

once more used in the New Testament, James i., 23, and 
there can be no doubt that there 'tis taken for a looking- 
glass. "Well, then, our dark, imperfect knowledge of God 
here is thus set forth by seeing in a glass, because it is no 
immediate vision ; the object is not primarily and immedi- 
ately presented to the eye, but by way of resultancy and me- 
diante speculo, by the conveyance of the looking-glass, which 
is a silent interpreter of the object. And such is our knowl- 
edge of God here, and such our communion with him ; only 
some broken beams of glory, some glimpses of his presence 
scattered here and there, in this ordinance and in that — 
glasses of his own making, means of his proper institution."* 
2 Cor. ii.,14. — "Now thanks be unto God, which always 
causeth us to triumph in Christ." Here, too, our translators 
may be right, and, if they are wrong, it is in good company. 
I must needs think that for "causeth us to triumph" we 
should read " leadeth us in triumph ;" and that the Vulgate, 
when it rendered Qpianfievuv rjfidg " qui triumphat nos," and 
Jerome (which is the same thing) " qui triumphat de nobis," 
though even he has failed to bring out his meaning with 
clearness, were right. Gpia^peveiu occurs but on one other 
occasion in the New Testament (Col. ii., 15). No one there 
doubts that it means " to lead in triumph," "to make a show 
of," as vanquished and subdued ; and it is hard to withdraw 
this meaning from it here, being as it also is the only mean- 
ing of the word in classical Greek ; thus Plutarch, Thes. et 
JRom., iv.: fiamXe'tg edptafijoevae ml f)y£fji6vaQ,"he led kings and 
captains in triumph ;" and see other examples in Wetstein. 
But, it may be asked, what will St. Paul mean by the decla- 
ration " who every where leadeth us in triumph in Christ ?" 
The meaning is, indeed, a very grand one. St. Paul did not 
feel it inconsistent with the profoundest humility to regard 
himself as a signal trophy and token of God's victorious pow- 
er in Christ. Lying with his face upon the ground, he had 
anticipated, though in another sense, the words of another 

* Culverwell, Spiritual Opticks. p. 173. 

Bb 



1 40 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

fighter against God, "Vicisti, Galilsee ;" and now his Al- 
mighty Conqueror was leading him about through all the 
cities of the Greek and Roman world, an illustrious testimo- 
ny of his power at once to subdue and to save. The foe of 
Christ was now, as he gloried in naming himself, the servant 
of Christ, and this, his mighty transformation, God was mak- 
ing manifest to the glory of his name in every place. The 
attempt of some to combine the meanings of " being led in 
triumph," which they feel that the word demands, and " tri- 
umphing," or " being made to triumph," which it seems to 
them the sense demands, is in my judgment an attempt to 
reconcile irreconcilable images ; as, for instance, when Stan- 
ley says, "The sense of conquest and degradation is lost in , 
the more general sense of 'making us to share this triumph.' " 
But in the literal triumph, who so pitiable, so abject, so for- 
lorn as the captive chief or king, the Jugurtha or Vercingeto- 
rix, doomed often, as soon as he had graced the show, to a 
speedy and miserable death ? But it is not with God as 
with man ; for while to be led in triumph of men is the most 
miserable, to be led in triumph of God, as the willing trophy 
of his power, is the most glorious and blessed lot which could 
fall to any ; and it is this, I am persuaded, which the apostle 
claims for his own. 

2 Cor. ii., 17. — " For we are not as many, which corrupt the 
Word of God." Doubtless there is much to be said in favor 
of this version of KcnrrikevovTzc tov Xoyov rov Qeov. KcnrrjXeveiv 
is often to " adulterate," vodeveiv, as Chrysostom expounds it, 
" to mingle false with true," as the raTr^Xoc, or petty huckster, 
would frequently do. Still the matter is by no means so 
clear in favor of this meaning of Ka7rr)\eveiv, and against the 
other, " to make a traffic of," as some in later times would 
have it ; and the words kl eiXitcpivsiaQ, which Meyer conceives 
decisive, seem to me rather an argument the other way. 
What so natural as that St. Paul should put back the charge 
of making a traffic with the Word of God; above all, seeing 
how earnestly elsewhere in this epistle he clears himself from 



ON SOME QUESTIONABLE RENDERINGS OF WORDS. 141 

similar charges (xii., 14, 17) ? I believe, when Tyndale ren- 
dered K<nrri\eveiv here, " to chop and change with," he was on 
the right track ; and many will remember the remarkable 
passage in Bentley's Sermon upon Popery r , which is so strong 
in this view that, long as it is, I can not forbear to quote it : 
" Our English translators have not been very happy in their 
version of this passage. We are not, says the apostle, Kawr]- 
\evovreg ruv \6yov rov Qeov, which our translators have render- 
ed 'We do not corrupt' or (as in the margin) deal deceitfully 
with ' the Word of God.' They were led to this by the par- 
allel place, c. iv. of this epistle, ver. 2, ' not walking in crafti- 
ness,' fitfe doXovvreg rbvX6yoi> rov Qeov, 'nor handling the Word 
of God deceitfully ;' they took Ka-rjXevov-eg and hXovv-eg in 
the same adequate notion, as the vulgar Latin had done be- 
fore them, which expresses both by the same word, adulter- 
antes verbum Dei ; and so, likewise, Hesychius makes them 
synonyms, kKa7rr)Xeveiv, loXovv. AoXovv, indeed, is fitly render- 
ed adulterare; so ZoXovv rov ■^pvabv^rbv oIjw, to adulterate 
gold or wine by mixing worse ingredients with the metal or 
liquor. And our translators had done well if they had ren- 
dered the latter passage, not adulterating, not sophisticating 
the Word. But Ka-K-qXEvov-eg in our text has a complex idea 
and a wider signification ; Ka-n-rjXEVEiv always comprehends Zo- 
Xovv, but coXovv never extends to KaTrrjXsvew. which, besides 
the sense of adulterating, has an additional notion of unjust 
lucre, gain, profit, advantage. This is plain from the word 
KcnrrjXog, a calling always infamous for avarice and knavery : 
perfidus hie caupo, says the poet, as a general character. 
Thence KcnrrjXeveLv, by an easy and natural metaphor, was di- 
verted to other expressions where cheating and lucre were 
signified : kcl-tiXeveii' rov Xoyov, says the apostle here, and the 
ancient Greeks, Ka-r)XEVEiv rag ctKag, rt)v Eipi'jvqv, rijv trotpiav. to. 
fiadiifia-a, to corrupt and sell justice, to barter a negotiation 
of peace, to prostitute learning and philosophy for gain. 
Cheating, we see, and adulterating is part of the notion of 
KaxriXEVEip, but the principal essential of it is sordid lucre. 



1 42 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

So cauponari in the famous passage of Ennius, where Pyrrhus 

refuses the offer of a ransom for his captives, and restores 

them gratis : 

" 'Non mi aurum posco, nee mi pretium dederitis, 
Non cauponanti bellum, sed belligeranti.' 

And so the fathers expound this place. ... So that, in short, 
what St. Paul says, KairrjXevovreg tov Xoyov, might be expressed 
in one classic word — Xoyefjnropoi, or Xoyo7rpdrai, where the idea 
of gain and profit is the chief part of the signification. Where- 
fore, to do justice to our text, we must not stop lamely with 
our translators, ' corrupters of the Word of God,' but add to 
it as its plenary notion, c corrupters of the Word of God for 
filthy lucre? "* 

Col. ii.,8. — "Beware lest any man spoil you through phi- 
losophy and vain deceit." This translation may very well 
hold its place ; avXayojyeh' does mean to rob or spoil ; this, 
however, is its secondary meaning ; its first, and that which 
agrees with its etymology (ffvXov and ayw), would be, " to 
lead away the spoil," " prsedam abigere ;" and certainly the 
warning would be more emphatic if we understood it as a 
warning lest they should become themselves the spoil or 
booty of these false teachers : " Beware lest any man make 
a booty of you, lead you away as his spoil, through philoso- 
phy and vain deceit." Bengel: " avXaywyuiv, qui non solum 
de vobis, sed vos ipsos spolium faciat." 

Col. ii., 23. — "Which things have indeed a show of wisdom 
in will- worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body, 
not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh" The first 
part of this verse, itself not very easy, appears to me to be 
excellently rendered in our version.. Perhaps, were it to do 
again, instead of " a show of wisdom," " a reputation of wis- 
dom" would more exactly express Xoyov aotyiac ; and there may 
be a question whether " neglecting" is quite strong enough 
for a(peilia, whether " punishing" or " not sparing," which are 
both suggested in the margin, would not, one or the other, 
* Works, vol.iii.,p. 242. 



ON SOME QUESTIONABLE RENDERINGS OF WORDS. 143 

have been well introduced into the text. But in the latter 
part of the verse, where its chief difficulties reside, our trans- 
lators leave us in some doubt as regards the exact meaning 
which the passage had for them. About the Geneva Version 
I have no doubt. Its authors, evidently under the leading 
of Beza, have seized the right meaning : " [yet are] of no 
value, [but appertain to those things] wherewith the flesh is 
crammed." At the same time, their version is too paraphras- 
tic, the words which I have inclosed within brackets having 
no corresponding words in the original. Did our translators 
mean the same thing ? I am inclined to think not, else they 
would have placed, a comma after "honor;" but that rather 
they, in agreement with many of the best interpreters of 
their time, understood the verse thus : " Which things have 
a show of wisdom, etc., but are not in any true honor, as 
things which serve to the satisfying of the just needs of the 
body." If this be, as I feel pretty sure it is, their meaning, 
there may be urged against it that 7r\r)crfiovrj has a constant 
sense of filling overmuch, or stuffing (Isa. i.,14; Psa. cv.,16; 
Ezek. xvi.,49); and followed by aapKog, could scarcely have 
any other sense; it being impossible that aapl here can be 
used in an honorable intention and as equivalent to arivjia, but 
only in the constant Pauline sense of the flesh and mind of 
the flesh as opposed to the spirit. Some rendering which 
should express what the Geneva Version expresses, but in 
happier and conciser terms, is that which should be aimed 
at here. " A golden sentence," as he calls it, which Bengel 
quotes from the Commentary of Hilary the Deacon on this 
passage, " Sagina carnalis sensus traditio humana est," shows 
that this interpretation of it was not unknown in antiquity. 

1 Tim. vi., 8. — "Having food and raiment, let us be there- 
with content." Would it not be better to translate, " Hav- 
ing food and covering, let us be therewith content?" It is 
possible that St. Paul had only raiment in his eye ; and <tk£- 
Traoyza is sometimes used in this more limited sense (Plato, 
Polit., 279, d) ; but seeing that it may very well include, and 



144 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NE W TESTAMENT. 

does very often include, habitation,* this more general word, 
which it would have been still free for those who liked to un- 
derstand as " raiment" alone, appears to me preferable. The 
Vulgate, which translates " Habentes alimenta et quibus teg- 
atnur" and De Wette, " Bedeckung," give the same extent 
to the word. 

Heb. ii.,16. — "For verily he took not on him the nature of 
angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham." It is well 
known what a consent of ancient interpreters there was to 
the fact that this verse contained an express allusion to the 
Incarnation, and our translators are here only true to the 
universal exposition of their age. But there is almost an 
equally universal denial on the part of modern expositors 
that there is here any reference to the Incarnation, but only 
generally to the fact that Christ is a helper of men and not 
of angels ; Castellio being, I believe, the first who asserted 
that grammatically the other interpretation would not stand ; 
and already we find in South a very clear statement of what 
may be said, and said justly, against the traditional exposi- 
tion, though he himself, as it presently appears, is not pre- 
pared to let it go. I will quote the objections as he puts 
them, and will accept them rather than the refutation of 
them which he afterward supplies. " As for the words that 
I have here pitched upon, it must be confessed that the trans- 
lation represents them very different from what they are in 
the original, which runs thus : Oh yap h']7rov £iri\afj.(3ar£Tai rovg 
ayysXovg — where we find that what we render by the preter 
tense 'He took,' the original has by the present, 'He takes;' 
and what we render £ the nature of angels,' the original has 
only tovq ayyiXovg, i angelos.' Neither is it clear that ' to 
take on him' or c to assume' is the genuine signification of i-m- 
Xafx/japsTai. This text is generally used by divines, ancient 
and modern, to prove Christ's Incarnation, or assuming of the 
human nature, notwithstanding that this word £TnXa}tfiav£Tai 
(as Camero well observes) is nowhere else in Scripture taken 

* 2fC£7n7£ Sittov eldog, to fiev IcOrig, to Sk oiicia. Philo, De Vit.Con., § 4. 



ON SOME QUESTIONABLE RENDERINGS OF WORDS. 145 

in this sense. St. Paul uses it in 1 Tim. vi.,19, but with him 
there it signifies 'to apprehend,' 'to attain,' or compass a 
thing. But its chief signification, and which seems most suit- 
able to this place, is ' to rescue and deliver,' it being taken 
from the usual manner of rescuing a thing, namely, by catch- 
ing hold of it, and so forcibly wringing it from the adversa- 
ry ; as David, when he rescued the lamb from the bear and 
the lion's mouth, might be properly said tVtXa^/Ba^fo-Sat. And 
Grotius observes that the proper sense of this word is ' vin- 
dicare seu asserere in libertatem manu injecta.' "* 

James iii., 5. — " Behold how great a matter a little fire 
kindleth !" This may be right. Our translators have the 
high authority of St. Jerome on their side, who renders {in 
Esai., 66) : "Parvus ignis quam grandem succendit materi- 
am;" and compare Ecclus. xxviii., 10; yet certainly it is 
much more in the spirit and temper of this grand imagina- 
tive passage to take v\r)v here as " wood" or " forest :" " Be- 
hold how great a forest a little spark kindleth !" So the Vul- 
gate long ago : " Ecce quantus ignis quam magnam silvam 
incendit !" and De Wette : " Siehe, ein kleines Feuer, welch 
einen grossen Wald ziindet es an !" It need hardly be ob- 
served how frequently in ancient classical poetry the image 
of the little spark setting the great forest in a blaze recurs — 
in Homer, II., xi., 155 ; in Pindar, Pyth., iii., 66, and elsewhere ; 
nor yet how much better this of the wrapping of some vast 
forest in a flame by the falling of a single spark sets out that 
which was in St. James's mind, namely, of a far-spreading mis- 
chief springing from a smallest cause, than does the vague 
sense which in our version is attached to the word. Our 
translators have placed " wood" in the margin. 

Rev. iii., 2. — "Strengthen the things which remain, that are 
ready to die." The better commentators are now agreed that 
-a Xonra, thus rendered " the things which remain," should be 
taken rather as =Tovg \ovkovq, and that the angel of the Sar- 
dian Church is not bidden, as we generally understand it, to 

* Sermons, vol. iii., p. 272. 



1 46 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

strengthen the graces that remain in his own heart, but the 
few and feeble believers that remain in the Church over 
which he presides; the allusion being probably to Ezek. 
xxxiv., 2. Vitringa: " Commendat vigilantiam, qua sibi a 
morte caverent, et alios ab interitu imminente vindicarent." 
The use of the neuter, singular and plural, where not things, 
but persons are intended, is too frequent in the New Testa- 
ment to cause any difficulty (Winer, Gramm., § 27, 4), and 
may have a very deep significance here, where it designates 
an inert and well-nigh lifeless mass. 



ON SOME INCORRECT RENDERINGS OF WORDS, ETC. 147 



CHAPTER X. 

ON SOME INCORRECT RENDERINGS OF WORDS AND PASSAGES. 

Our translators occasionally fail in part or altogether to 
give the true force of a word or a passage. In some cases it 
is evident they have assumed a wrong etymology. These 
are examples : 

Matt, viii., 20. — " The birds of the air have nests." It stood 
thus in the versions preceding ; the Vulgate, in like manner, 
has " nidos ;" but some of the earlier Latin versions, " diver- 
soria ;" and Augustine, using one of these, has " tabernacu- 
la ;"* and these, with their equivalent English, are on all ac- 
counts the preferable renderings. For, in the first place, birds 
do not retire to their " nests" except at one brief period of 
the year; and then, secondly, /an-aox^iwete will not bear that 
meaning, or, at all events, has so much more naturally the 
more general meaning of shelters, habitations (" latibula," 
"cubilia;" "Wohnungen," De Wette), that one must needs 
agree with Grotius, who here remarks : " Quin vox haec ad 
arborum ramos pertineat, dubitaturum non puto qui loca in- 
fra, xiii., 32 ; Marc, iv., 32, et Luc. xiii., 19, inspexerit."f He 
might have added to these, Psa. civ., 12 ; Dan. iv., 18,LXX. 

Matt, x.,4; comp. Mark iii., 18. — "Simon the Canaanite" 
I have often asked myself in perplexity what our transla- 
tors meant by this " Canaanite," which they are the first to 
use, although Cranmer's " Simon of Canaan" and probably 
Tyndale's " Simon of Canan" come to the same thing. Take 
" Canaanite" in its obvious sense, and in that which every 
where else in the Scripture it possesses (Gen. xii., 6 ; Exod. 
xxiii., 28 ; Zech. xiv., 21 ; and continually), and the word 

* Qucest. xvii. in Matt., qu. 5. 

t See an excellent note in Fischer, De Vitiis Lex. N. T., p. 285. 



148 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

would imply that one of the twelve, of those that should sit 
on the twelve thrones judging the tribes of Israel, was him- 
self not of the seed of Abraham, but of that accursed stock, 
which the children of Israel, going back from God's com- 
mandment, had failed utterly to extirpate on their entrance 
into the Promised Land, and which, having thus been per- 
mitted to live, had gradually been absorbed into the nation. 
This, of course, could not be ; to say nothing of the word 
which they had before them being Kavavirtig, and not Xam- 
vcuoc, as would have been necessary to justify the rendering 
of the Authorized Version. There can be no doubt that Ka- 
vavirriQ here is = ^Xwn/g, Luke vi.,15; Acts i., 13, and ex- 
presses the fact that Simon had been, before he joined him- 
self to the Lord, one of those stormy zealots who, professing 
to follow the example of Phinehas (Num. xxv., 11), took the 
vindication of God's outraged law into their own hands. 
There is, indeed, another explanation sometimes given of the 
word, but the manner in which our translators have spelt the 
word will hardly allow one to suppose that they adopted 
this, and by "Canaanite" meant " of Cana," the village in Gal- 
ilee. This is Jerome's view, and I suppose Beza's ("Canan- 
ites") and De Wette's (" cler Kananit") ; yet Kava would sure- 
ly yield, not Kavavirrjg, but KaWrrje, as "Afidripa, 'A/j^rjpirijg. I 
confess myself wholly at a loss to understand the intention 
of our translators ; for the reading Kavavaiog, which Tischen- 
dorf and Lachmann have introduced into their text, hardly 
known when they wrote, could certainly have exercised no 
influence upon them, except, indeed, through the " Chananse- 
us" of the Vulgate. 

Matt, xiv., 8. — "And_she, being before instructed of her 
mother, said, Give me here John Baptist's head in a char- 
ger." A meaning is given here to 7rpo/3t/3a<r0£7o-a which it 
will not bear, but to which the " prsemonita" of the Vulgate 
may have led the way. Upofiifia'Ceiv is to urge on, or push 
forward, to make to advance, or sometimes, intransitively, to 
advance; the irpo not being of time, but of place; thus 7rpoj3i- 



ON S03IE INCORRECT RENDERINGS OF WORDS, ETC. 149 

fja'Ceiv rrjp 7ra-ptca, to set forward the might of one's country 
(Polybius ix., 10,4) ; and it is sometimes used literally, some- 
times figuratively. On the one other occasion when it occurs 
in the New Testament it is used literally ; TrpoEfilfiaaav 'AXit,- 
avlpov (Acts xix., 33), " Xhzy pushed forward Alexander," not, 
as in our version, " they drew out Alexander ;" here figura- 
tively and morally. We may conceive the unhappy girl, 
with all her vanity and levity, yet shrinking from the peti- 
tion of blood which her mother would put into her lips, and 
needing to be urged on, or pushed forward, before she could 
be induced to make it; and this is implied in the word. I 
should translate, "And she, being urged on by her mother." 

Matt, xi v., 13. — "They followed him on foot out of the 
cities." Ile^ might very well mean " on foot," yet it does 
not mean so here, but rather " by land." There could be no 
question that the multitude who followed Jesus would in the 
main proceed " on foot," and not in chariots or on horses, and 
it is not this which the evangelist desires to state. The con- 
trast which he would draw is between the Lord who reach- 
ed the desert place by ship (see the earlier part of the verse), 
and the multitude who found their way thither by land. 
Compare the use of ite'CevEiv at Acts xx., 13, by the Rheims 
rightly translated " to journey by land," but in our transla- 
tion, not with the same precision, " to go afoot." 

Matt, xxiii., 24. — "Which strain at a gnat, and swallow a 
camel." This has often been found fault with. Long ago 
Bishop Lowth complained, " The impropriety of the preposi- 
tion has wholly destroyed the meaning of the phrase." Yet 
it may well be a question here whether the inaccuracy com- 
plained of lies at the door of the translators or the printers. 
For myself, I feel strongly convinced that we have here a 
misprint, which having been passed over in the first edition 
of 1611, has held its ground ever since; and that our trans- 
lators intended, " which strain out a gnat, and swallow a 
camel ;". this being at once intelligible, and a correct render- 
ing of the original, while our version, as at present it stands, 



150 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

is neither, or only intelligible on the supposition, no doubt 
the supposition of most English readers, that " strain at" 
means swallow with difficulty, men hardly and with effort 
swallowing the little insect, but gulping down meanwhile, 
unconcerned, the huge animal. It need scarcely be said that 
this is very far from the meaning of the original words, ol $i- 
v\i'(ovTEQ tbv Ku)Vd)7ra, by Meyer rendered well " percolanda re- 
moventes muscam," and by the Vulgate also not ill, " exco- 
lantes culicem ;" for which use of %iv\l£eip, as to cleanse by 
passing through a strainer, see Plutarch, Symp.,Y\., 7, 1. It 
was the custom of the more accurate and stricter Jews to 
strain their wine, vinegar, and other potables through linen 
or gauze, lest unawares they should drink down some little 
unclean insect therein, and thus transgress Lev. xi., 20, 23, 41, 
42, just as the Buddhists do now in Ceylon and Hindostan — 
and to this custom of theirs the Lord refers. A recent travel- 
er in North Africa writes in an unpublished communication 
•which he has been good enough to make to me, " In a ride 
from Tangier to Tetuan I observed that a Moorish soldier 
who accompanied me, when he drank, always unfolded the 
end of his turban and placed it over the mouth of his bota, 
drinking through the muslin, to strain out the gnats, whose 
larvse swarm in the water of that country." The further 
fact that our present version rests to so great an extent on 
the three preceding, Tyndale's, Cranmer's, and the Geneva, 
and that all these have " strain out" is additional evidence 
in confirmation of that about which for myself I feel no 
doubt, namely, that we have here an unnoticed, and thus un- 
corrected, error of the press ; which yet, having been once al- 
lowed to pass, yielded, or seemed to yield, some sort of sense, 
and thus did not provoke and challenge correction, as one 
making sheer nonsense would have done. There was no such 
faultless accuracy in the first edition as should make us slow 
to admit this ; on the contrary, more than one mistake, which 
had in the exemplar edition of 1611 been passed over, was 
subsequently discovered and removed. Thus it stood there, 



ON SOME INCORRECT RENDERINGS OF WORDS, ETC. 151 

at 1 Cor. iv., 9, " God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it 
were approved to death ;" yet " approved" was afterward 
changed for the word no doubt intended, " appointed." In 
another passage, I mean 1 Cor. xii., 28, the misprint "helps 
in governments," after having retained its place in several 
successive editions, was afterward in like manner removed, 
and the present correcter reading, " helps, governments" 
(avTi\i]\j/£ig, yvfieprrjaeig), substituted in its room. 

Mark xi., 4. — "A place vj/iere two ways met" " K^olog 
(afxfi and 6d6g) is rather a way round, a crooked lane. 

Mark xii., 26. — "Have ye not read in the book of Moses 
how in the bush God spake unto him ?" But kir\ rrjg fiarov, as 
all acknowledge now, is not " in the bush," as indicating the 
place from which God spake to Moses, but means " in that 
portion of Scripture which goes by the name of The Bush" — 
the Jews being wont to designate different portions of Scrip- 
ture by the most memorable thing or fact recorded in them; 
thus one portion was called h fiarog. How, indeed to tell this 
story in the English Version is not easy to determine, with- 
out forsaking the translator's sphere and entering into that 
of the commentator. I may observe that kv 'HXm (Rom. xi., 
2) is a quotation of the same kind. It can never mean " of 
Elias," as in our translation, but is rather " in the history of 
Elias,"in that section of Scripture which tells of him; so De 
Wette : " in der Geschichte des Elia." 

Acts xi v., 15. — "We also are men of like passions with 
you." This fact would not have disproved in the eyes of 
these Lycaonians the right of Paul and Silas to be consider- 
ed gods. The heathen were only too ready to ascribe to 
their gods like passions, revenge, lust, envy, with their own. 
'OfioioTradelg v^lv means rather " subject to like conditions," 
that is, of pain, sickness, old age, death, " with yourselves." 
Translate, " We also are men who suffer like things with your- 
selves." The Vulgate, "Et nos mortales sumus," is on the 
right track; and Tyndale, "We are mortal men like unto 
you." The only other passage in the New Testament in 



152 TRENCH ON A TJTR. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

which dfioioTradfig occurs (James v., 1 7) will need to be slight- 
ly modified in the same sense. 

Acts xvii., 22. — "I perceive that in all things ye are too su- 
perstitiousP This, as Luther's "allzu aberglaubisch," is a 
rendering very much to be regretted. Whatever severe 
things St. Paul might be obliged to say to his hearers, yet it 
was not his way to begin by insulting, and in this way alien- 
ating them from himself, and from the truth of which he was 
the bearer. Rather, if there was any thing in them which he 
could praise, he would praise that, and only afterward con- 
demn that which demanded condemnation. So is it here ; he 
affirmed, and no doubt they took it for praise, that by his 
own observation he had gathered they were wg luoilaipovEaTi- 
pouc, as men greatly addicted to the. worship of deities, "very 
religious," as I should render it, giving to " religious" its true 
sense, and not the mischievous sense which it has now ac- 
quired. So Beza, " religiosiores ;" and De Wette, " sehr got- 
tesfurchtig." This was the praise which all antiquity gave 
to the Athenians, and which Paul does not withhold, using 
at the same time with the finest tact and skill a middle word, 
capable of a good sense, and capable of a bad — a word origi- 
nally of honorable meaning, but which had already slipped in 
part into a dishonorable sense ; thus finely insinuating that 
this service of theirs might easily slip, or have slipped al- 
ready, into excess, or might be rendered to wrong objects. 
Still these words are to be taken, not as a holding up to 
them of their sin, but as a captatio benevolentice, and it must 
be confessed they are coarsely rendered in our version. 

Acts xxv., 5. — " Let them, therefore, said he, which among 
you are able, go down." But ol cwaroi is not "those which 
are able," but " those which are in authority," as the Vul- 
gate rightly, " qui potentes sunt :" see Losner, Obss. in JV. 7!, 
in loco. 

Rom. ii., 22. — "Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou com- 
mit sacrilege ?" This is too general, and fails to bring out 
with sufficient distinctness the charge which the apostle in 



ON SOME INCORRECT RENDERINGS OF WORDS, ETC 153 

this lepoffvXeTg is making against the Jew. The charge is this : 
" Thou professest to abhor idols, and yet art so mastered by 
thy covetousness that, if opportunity offers, thou wilt not 
scruple thyself to lay hands on these gold and silver abom- 
inations, and to make them thy own" (see Chrysostom, in 
loco). Read, " Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou rob tem- 
ples T\ 

Rom. xi., 8. — " According as it is written, God hath given 
them the spirit of slumber." Our translators must have de- 
rived Karaw'tig from vvara&iv, as indeed many others have 
done, before they could have given it this meaning. Yet they 
plainly have their misgiving in respect of the correctness of 
this etymology, for they propose " remorse" in the margin, 
evidently on the correcter hypothesis that the word is not 
from vuora^av, but vvaaw. Still, even if they had put " re- 
morse," as the compunction of the soul (the Vulgate has 
"compunctio"), into the text, though they would have been 
etymologically right, they would not have seized the exact 
force of Karavvfe, at least in Hellenistic Greek, as is plain 
from the service which it does in the Septuagint (Isa. xxix., 
10 ; Psa. lix., 3), and from the Hebrew words which it is there 
made to render. This is no place for entering at length into 
all (and it is much) which has been written on this word. 
Sufficient to say that it is properly the stupor or stupefac- 
tion, the astonishment, bringing " astonishment" back to its 
stronger and earlier meaning, the stunnedness (" Betaubung," 
De Wette) consequent on a wound or blow, vvogelv, as I need 
hardly observe, being "to strike" as well as "to pierce." 
" Torpor," only that this so easily suggests the wrong ety- 
mology, and runs into the notion of deep sleep, would not be 
a bad rendering of it. " Stupor," which the " Five Clergy- 
men" have adopted, is perhaps better. Hammond, whose 
marginal emendations of the Authorized Version are often 
exceedingly valuable, and deserve more attention than they 
have received, being about the most valuable part of his Par- 
aphrase and Annotations upon the New Testament, has sug- 



154 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

gested " senselessness ;" but this is not one of his happiest 
emendations. 

Gal. i., 18. — "I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter." 'Io-ro- 
peiv is not merely " to see," b.ut properly to inquire, to inves- 
tigate, to interrogate, to arrive by personal knowledge, ocu- 
lar or other, at the actual knowledge of past events ; and 
then, secondarily, to set down the results of these investiga- 
tions, just as laropla is first this investigation, and then, in. a 
secondary sense, the result of it duly set down, or, as we say, 
"history." Here, indeed, it is a person, and not things, which 
are the object of this closer knowledge. " I went up to Je- 
rusalem," says Paul, " to acquaint myself with Peter" (" ac- 
curatius cognoscere; itaque plus inest quam in verbo Ide'iv." 
— Winer). 

Gal. v., 19, 20. — "The works of the flesh are manifest, . . . 
seditions" It is at first perplexing to find this as the render- 
ing of ZtxoGTaaiai, which is evidently a word of wider reach ; 
but Archdeacon Hare has admirably accounted for its ap- 
pearance in this place.* I will quote his words : " When our 
version is inaccurate or inadequate, this does not arise, as it 
does throughout in the Rhemish Version, from a coincidence 
with the Vulgate, yet its inadequate renderings often seem 
to have arisen from an imperfect apprehension of some Latin 
substitute for the word in the Greek text — from taking some 
peculiar sense of the Latin word different from that in which 
it was used to represent the Greek original. Let me illus- 
trate this by a single instance. Among the works of the 
flesh St. Paul (Gal. v., 20) numbers dtxptrraaiat, which we ren- 
der ' seditions.' But ' seditions' in our old, as well as our 
modern language, are only one form of the divisions implied 
by &x ooTao """> and assuredly not the form which would pre- 
sent itself foremost to the apostle's mind when writing to 
the Galatians. At first, too, one is puzzled to understand 
how the word l seditions' came to suggest itself in the place, 
instead of the more general term ' divisions,' which is the 

* Mission of the Comforter,]}. 391. 



ON SOME INCORRECT RENDERINGS OF WORDS, ETC. 155 

plain correspondent to &x 00Ta0YCU > an( ^ ^ s so used in Rom. 
xvljlY, and in 1 Cor. iii., 3. Here the thought occurs that 
the Latin word c seditio,' though in its ordinary acceptation 
equivalent to its English derivative, yet primarily and ety- 
mologically answers very closely to £tx OOTaor<cu ; and one is 
naturally led to conjecture that our translators must have 
followed some Latin version, in which the word ( seditiones' 
was used, not without an affectation of archaic elegance. 
Now the Yulgate has " dissensiones,' but in Erasmus, whose 
style was marked by that characteristic, we find the very 
word c seditiones.' Hence Tyndale, whom we know from his 
controversial writings to have made use of Erasmus's ver- 
sion, took his ' sedition,' not minding that the sense in which 
Erasmus 'had used the Latin word was alien to the English ; 
and from Tyndale it has come down, with a mere change 
of number, into our present version, while Wicliffe and the 
Rhemish render the Yulgate by ' dissensions.' " 

Ephes. iv., 29. — "Let no corrupt communication proceed 
out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edify- 
ing" But to justify these last words, to which Beza's "ad 
sedificationis usum" may have led the way, we should have 
found, not trpbg olKodofirjv rfjg j(pEiag, but 7rpog 01* elg ^pelav rrjg oIko- 
^ofifjg. No one will affirm that we have such an hypallage 
here. There is much more in the words than such a transla- 
tion, even were it allowable, would educe from them. It is 
not very easy to give, without circumlocution, a satisfacto- 
ry English rendering ; but the meaning is abundantly clear. 
" Let such discourse," St. Paul would say, " proceed from your 
mouths as is profitable to the present emergent need or oc- 
casion; do not deal in vague, flat, unmeaning generalities, 
which would suit a thousand other cases equally well, and 
probably, therefore, equally ill ; let your words be what the 
words of wise men will always be, nails fastened in a sure 
place, words suiting the present time and the present person, 
being for the edifying of the occasion." "Edification of the 
need," Ellicott has it ; and De Wette, " zur Erbauung nach 

' Cc 



156 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

Bediirfniss." An admonition of a similar character is couch- 
ed in the tiZivai ttCoq hi ivl EKaara) airoKplvEvQai of the paral- 
lel passage in the Colossians (iv., 6). Not so much " every 
man," as our version has it, but "each one" (tic ekclotoq) must 
have his own answer, that which meets his difficulties, his 
perplexities. There must not be one unfeeling, unsympathiz- 
ing, unvarying answer for all. 

Phil, iv., 3. — "And I entreat thee also, true yokefellow, 
help those women which labored with me in the Gospel, with 
Clement also." The alteration which this passage requires 
is exceedingly slight. Let only "those" be changed into 
" these," and a comma be placed after " women," and then 
the close connection of this verse with the verse preceding, 
most necessary for its right understanding, will plainly ap- 
pear, and otherwise it will render up its sense clearly, which 
now it can hardly be affirmed to do. St. Paul has in that 
verse besought two faithful women in the Philippian Church, 
very probably deaconesses, Euodias* and.Syntyche, between 
whom some difference had arisen, to lay this aside, and to be 
again " of the same mind in the Lord." He now turns to 
one who, from some cause or other, was eminently fitted to 
be a peacemaker between these two, and addressing him as 
"true yokefellow," as one made to be a knitter again of the 
loosened bonds or yokes of love, exhorts him to " help these 
women," that is, to help them in a coming together again — 
that he should remove all obstacles and hinderances to this ; 
and the apostle finds a motive to this exhortation, a reason 
why this " true yokefellow" should be at pains herein, name- 
ly, because these two (observe a'/n>'cc : ="quippe quae") had 
labored with himself and others in the Gospel, and had both 
of them well deserved by these labors of love that they 
should not be left with any discord or dissension between 

* I should prefer "Euodia,"as it is in the Geneva Version, which would 
mark more clearly that it is a woman's name. Hammond, missing the fact 
that we have here to do with women at all, would change, on the contrary, 
" Syntyche" into " Syntyches." 



ON SOME INCORRECT RENDERINGS OF WORDS, ETC. 157 

them, if Christian help could remove this. Let this third 
verse be read with these slight alterations here proposed, 
and its meaning is sufficiently clear. 

Col. i., 15. — "Who is the image of the invisible God, the 
first-born of every creature." This is one of the very few 
renderings in our version which obscures a great doctrinal 
truth, and, indeed, worse than this, seems to play into the 
hands of Arian error. For does it not legitimately follow on 
this " first-born of every creature," or " of all creation," that 
he of whom this is predicated must be himself also a creature, 
although the first in the creation of God ? But in the phrase 
7rp(t)T0T0K0Q ttugtiq KTtaewc, we are not to regard iraarjq KTiazioQ as a 
partitive genitive, so that Christ is included in the " every 
creature," though distinguished as being the first-born among 
them, but rather as a genitive of comparison, depending on, 
and governed by, the irpCjroQ (see John i, 15, 30) which lies in 
TTpuToroKoe. I am not quite satisfied with " born before every 
creature," or " brought forth before every creature," because 
there lies in the original words a comparison between the be- 
getting of the Son and the creation of the creature, and not 
merely an opposition ; He is placed at the head of a series, 
though essentially differing from all that followed in the fact 
that he was born and they only created; the great distinc- 
tion between the yewav (or tikteiv, as it is here) and the k-L- 
£«j', which came so prominently forward in the Arian contro- 
versy, being here already marked. Still, I could have no 
question as between it and the " first-born of every creature" 
of our version, which obviously suggests an erroneous mean- 
ing, though it may be just capable of receiving a right one. 
It was nothing strange that Waterland, who, in the begin- 
ning of the last century, fought the great battle of the En- 
glish Church against the Arianism which claimed a right to 
exist in her very bosom, should have been very ill-content to 
find a most important testimony to that truth for which he 
was contending foregone and renounced, so far, at least, as 
the English translation reached. Nor was this all ; the verse 



158 TBENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

was not merely taken away from him, but, in appearance at 
least, made over to his adversaries. He often complains of 
this, as in the following passage : " In respect of the words, 
4 first-born of every creature' comes not up to the force or 
meaning of the original. It should have been ' bom (or be- 
gotten) before the ichole creation? as is manifest from the con- 
text, which gives the reason why he is said to be TrpiororoKOQ 
Tracrjc Krheioc. It is because he is ' before all things,' and be- 
cause by him were all things created. So that this very .pas- 
sage, which, as it stands in our translation, may seem -to sup- 
pose the Son one of the creatures, does, when rightly under- 
stood, clearly exempt him from the number of creatures. He 
was before all created being, and consequently was himself 
uncreated, existing with the Father from all eternity."* 

1 Tim. iv., 1, 2, 3. — " In the latter times some shall depart 
from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines 
of devils ; speaking lies in hypocrisy ; having their con- 
science seared with a hot iron ; forbidding to marry." It is 
difficult to say exactly how our translators intended here to 
deal with our original. There is one very obvious meaning 
to give to their version, that which almost every English 
reader does give, but one which involves a greater, and yet 
more obvious error than one is disposed to lay at their door. 
Mede, however, in a passage which I quote, but abridge in 
quoting, does not shrink from ascribing this to them. Yet I 
quote him here, not so much for his criticism of what they 
have done, or what he supposes them to have done, as be- 
cause he himself deals with the passage in the only right 
way. Speaking of our version, he says, "The syntax of the 
words in the Greek is incapable of such a construction ; for 
the persons intimated in the former verse are expressed in 
casic recto, as nwe 7rpo(rixovT£g, but the persons intended here 
(ver. 2) we find in the genitive, xpevSoXoyior k.t.\., which can 
not agree with nveg and Trpo<TeypvT£Q.\ They would indeed 

* Serm. 2, Christ's Divinity proved from Creation. 

t Another inconvenience he does not mention, that the seduced and the 
seducers in the Church would thus he confounded. 



ON S02IE INCORRECT RENDERINGS OF WORDS, ETC. 159 

agree with tiaipovitov, but that would be a harsh sense every 
way ; for either we must say, as some do, that by ' devils' are 
meant devilish men, which is a hard signification, or else 
it would be a stranger sense to say that devils should lie, 
have seared consciences, or forbid marriage or meats ; so 
that Beza and others had rather confess a breach of syntax 
than incur the inconvenience of such a forced sense. But 
what needs this, so long as there is a better way to solve it? 
namely, to make all these genitives to be governed of h viro- 
Kpiffei. I see no way but this to keep the syntax true and 
even, and wholly to avoid the forementioned inconveniences. 
As for the use of the preposition iv, to signify causam, instru- 
mentwn, or modum actio?iis, he that is not a stranger to the 
Scripture knows it to be most frequent, the Greek text bor- 
rowing it from th'e use of the Hebrew preposition a ; comp. 
Matt, v., 13; Acts xvii.,31; Tiki., 9; 2 Pet.iii.,1; 2 Thess. 
ii., 9, 10 ; so in my text, kv viroKplffet \pev%o\6ytov ic.r.X., this was 
the manner, means, and quality of the persons whereby the 
doctrine of demons was first brought in, advanced, and main- 
tained in the Church, namely, through the hypocrisy of those 
who told lies, of those who had their consciences seared, etc."* 
Heb. xi., 29. — "Which the Egyptians essaying to do, were 
drowned" Did our translators prefer the reading KareirovTiff- 
Q-qaav ? This is not very probable, the authority for it being 
so small. If they did not, and if they read, as is most likely, 
KarsTrodriffav, they should have rendered it by some word of 
wider reach, as, for instance, "were swallowed up," or " were 
ingulfed" (" devorati sunt," Vulgate ; " verschlungen wur- 
den," Bleek). " Swallowed up," besides being nearer the 
original, would more accurately set forth the historic fact. 
The pursuing armies of the Egyptians sunk in the sands quite 
as much as they were overwhelmed by the waves of the Red 
Sea, as is expressly declared in the hymn of triumph which 
Moses composed on the occasion; Kareirtev avrovg yrj, Exod. 
XV., 12 ; comp. Diodorus Siculus, i., 32, vir ci/z/uov Karawivzraii 
* Apostasy of the Latter Times, part ii., c. I. 



160 TRENCH ON A UTK VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

James i., 26. — " If any man among you seem to be religious, 
and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, 
this man's religion is vain." This verse, as it here stands, 
can not but have perplexed many. How, it has been asked, 
can a man " seem to be religious," that is, present himself to 
others as such, when his religious pretensions are belied and 
refuted by the allowance of an unbridled tongue ? But the 
perplexity has been introduced by our translators, who have 
here failed to play the part of accurate synonymists, and to 
draw the line sharply and distinctly between the verbs SokeIv 
and (paheodai. Aok£~iv expresses the subjective mental opin- 
ion of any thing which men form, their Ufa about it, which 
may be right (Acts xv.,28; 1 Cor. i v., 9) or which may be 
wrong (Matt, vi., 7 ; Mark vi., 49 ; Acts xxvii., 13) ; qaLveoOat 
the objective external appearance which it presents, quite in- 
dependent of men's conception about it. Thus, when Xeno- 
phon writes tyaivero 'ixvia iWwv (Anab.,\., 6,1), he would af- 
firm that horses had been actually there, and left their tracks. 
Had he employed the alternative word, it would have im- 
plied that Cyrus and his company took for tracks of horses 
what might have been, or what also very possibly might not 
have been, such at all. "koKtiv cernitur in opinione, quae falsa 
esse potest et vana. Sed yaiveaQai plerumque est in re extra 
mentem ; quamvis nemo opinatur."* Apply this distinction 
to the passage before us ; keep in mind that Zokzlv, and not 
(palvEcrdat, is the word used, and all is plain : " If any man 
among you think himself religious (" se putat religiosum 
esse," Vulgate), and bridleth not his tongue, etc." It is his 
own subjective estimate of his spiritual condition which is 
here expressed, an estimate which the following words de- 
clare to be entirely erroneous. Let me observe here that the 
same rendering ofk-av, Gal. ii., 6, 9, lends a color to St. Paul's 
words which is very far from being justly theirs. As we read 
in English, we seem to detect a certain covert irony upon his 
part in regard of the pretensions of the three great apostles 
* Vomel, SynonymischeWorterbuch, p. 207. 



ON S03IE INCORRECT RENDERINGS OF WORDS, ETC. Tgi 

whom be met at Jerusalem (" who seemed to be something" 
— "who seemed to be pillars"). There is, in fact, nothing of 
the kind : he expresses, not what they seemed or appeared, 
but what they by others were, and were rightly, held to be. 
The Geneva having " which are in estimation" — " which are 
taken to be pillars" — is here, as so often, correct ; correct also, 
it will be observed, in making Cokovvteq in both these verses a 
present, and not an imperfect participle. 

1 Pet. iii.,16. — "Having a good conscience, that whereas 
they speak evil of you as of evil doers, they may be ashamed 
that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ." For 
" Avhereas" {kv J) substitute " w T herein." The correction is 
not trivial, but brings out the exact point of St. Peter's ad- 
monition, which we now miss. It is this : Not the doc- 
trine, but the moral walk and conversation of the Christians, 
was the special object against which the calumnies of the 
heathen were directed,* as, for instance, all manner of hideous 
reports were afloat in regard of what they did in their secret 
assemblies. Now, says the apostle, in that very matter in 
which (kv J) they calumniate you the most, put them in that 
most manifestly to an open and wholesome shame, even in 
your walk, by the blameless innocency and purity of your 
conversation in the w T orld : " ut in eo quod detrahunt vobis 
confundantur" (Vulg.). At chap, ii., 12, precisely the same 
emendation w T ill need to be made. There indeed " wherein" 
is suggested in the margin. 

Jude 12. — " Trees ichose fruit witherethP But ^dtvoKiopivoQ 
has here a meaning ascribed to it which it nowhere possesses, 
as though it were = wXeakapTrog, the 00 LvoKapizog of Pin- 
dar, Pyth., iv., 265, or the " frugiperdus" of Pliny. The <j>di- 
voTriopov is the late autumn, the autumn far spent, which suc- 
ceeds the 07rwpa, or the autumn contemplated as the time of 
the ripened fruits of the earth, and which has its name 7rapa 
to (pdiveadcu rrjv Sir&pav, from the waning away of the autumn 
and the autumn fruits, themselves also often called the S-n-wpa; 
* " Quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos vocabat." — Tacitus. 



162 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

and yQivo-irupivoQ is always used in the sense of belonging to 
the late autumn. The Latin language has no word which 
distinguishes the later autumn from the earlier, and therefore 
the " arbores autumnales" of the Vulgate is a correct trans- 
lation, and one as accurate as the language would allow, un- 
less, indeed, it had been rendered " arbores senescentis autum- 
ni" or by some such phrase as De Wette, in his German trans- 
lation, has it, " spMierbstliche." We, I think, could scarcely 
get beyond " autumnal trees," or " trees of autumn" as the 
Rheims Version gives it. These deceivers are likened by the 
apostle to trees as they show in late autumn, when foliage 
and fruit alike are gone. Bengel: "Arbor tali specie qualis 
est autumno extremo, sine foliis et pomis." The (j>6ivoTriopiva, 
ckap-a, will then, in fact, mutually complete one another: 
" without leaves, without fruit." Tyndale, who throws to- 
gether SivSpa (j)6ivo7ru)piya aKap-rra, and renders the whole phrase 
thus, " trees without fruit at gathering time" was feeling aft- 
er, though he has not grasped, the right translation. 



ON SOME UNJUST CHARGES, ETC. 163 



CHAPTER XL 

ON SOME CHAEGES UNJUSTLY BROUGHT AGAINST THE 
AUTHORIZED VERSION. 

There are certain charges which have been brought, and 
some of them are still repeated, against our translation, of 
the injustice of which I feel deeply convinced. I do not now 
allude to charges which have been already noticed, and which 
testify to a want of familiarity on the part of those who 
make them with the changes which the English language, 
since the time when our version was published, has under- 
gone. Those on which I now would say something are of 
quite a different kind. They move in quite a different sphere, 
are of a far more serious character, and, indeed, touch so 
nearly the honor and good faith of the authors of our ver- 
sion, that they can hardly be passed over without observa- 
tion. Our translators, then, are accused, as is familiar to 
many, of a deceitful handling of the Word of God, of snatch- 
ing at unfair advantages, gratifying their own leanings in re- 
gard both of doctrine and discipline, at the expense of that 
strict, impartial accuracy which it is the prime duty of those 
holding their position of trust and confidence always to main- 
tain, of slurring over passages of Scripture which seem to 
make for an adversary, or compelling others to bear a testi- 
mony in their own favor which, except on this undue com- 
pulsion, they would never have borne. 

These charges may, for clearness and convenience sake, be 
divided under the following heads, which will include, if not 
all, yet all the more important accusations of this kind which 
have at any time been made. 

1. Charges made by Roman Catholics that our translators 
have compelled passages of Scripture to tell against Roman 



164 TRENCH ON A JJTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

doctrine, which, fairly translated, would yield no such testi- 
mony against it; while they have weakened or destroyed 
the witness of other passages, w T hich, were the version a more 
honest one, would be found on the side of Rome, in the points 
at issue between her and the Reformed Church. 

2. Charges, made chiefly in times past, by Protestant Dis- 
senters in respect of such words as bear upon the points of 
Church government and discipline debated between them 
and us, such, for instance, as "bishop," "church," "ordain" 
— that we have not played true in respect of these, but have 
every where given a more ecclesiastical tone and coloring to 
the translation than, fairly and impartially rendered, it would 
have borne. 

3. Charges made by Arminians, either within or without 
the Church, accusing our translators of Calvinistic tenden- 
cies, out of which they have brought passages to bear on 
this controversy, and in their own sense, that have no proper 
reference to it at all — have given, so to speak, an edge to 
some statements, and blunted the edge of others, according 
as these seemed to make for or against the scheme of doc- 
trine which they favored. 

4. Charges made in modern times by Arians and Socin- 
ians, who affirm that our version has put an undue emphasis 
on various passages bearing on the nature and dignity of the 
Son of God, had set him forth in a manner which the original 
would not warrant as God in the very highest sense of the 
word. To this is in general appended a further complaint, 
but one closely connected with the preceding, to the effect 
that sacrificial terms, as "propitiation," "atonement," and 
the like, have been needlessly and unwarrantably brought in. 

It will at once be seen that it would be totally impossible 
to enter into all the controversies which in these objections 
are stirred. Any exhaustive dealing with them would lead 
very far away from the main purpose of this book, while it 
would be much easier to open than to close the discussions 
in which it would thus become necessary to engage. De- 



OX SOME UXJUST CHARGES, ETC. 165 

clining to plunge into these, all that I can pretend to do is 
to take one or two salient points under each of these heads 
— one or two of the imputations of unfairness most often 
made — to deal with these; and, if they are capable of being 
satisfactorily set aside, to argue from this that it is at least 
probable that the others might be as successfully dealt with. 

And, first, in regard of the complaints made by the Roman 
Catholics. The most elaborate attack upon the Anglican 
Version from this quarter is contained in a work by Gregory 
Martin, a seminary priest, published in 1582* — published, 
therefore, some thirty years before our present translation. It 
will naturally follow from this date that some of its charges 
are, as regards our version, beside the mark, and do not touch 
it. So very much, however, of the earlier translations sur- 
vives in our final revision, that in a vast number of instances 
they bear with the same force, or weakness, upon the version 
as it stands now as they did upon its predecessors. 

Let me here first observe, that it is very unreasonable to 
find fault with our translators, that, in certain passages fairly 
capable of two renderings, one of which gave a stronger tes- 
timony in favor of what they believed to be the truth, or in 
condemnation of what they believed to be error, than the 
other, they should have adopted that which fell in with all 
their antecedent convictions ; for instance, that at Heb. xiii., 4, 
they should incline to that interpretation, and adopt that ren- 
dering, which justified the abolition in the Reformed Church 
of the compulsory celibate of the clergy. The rendering of 

* The long title of the book is as follows : A discovery of the manifold 
Corruptions of the Holy Scriptures by the Heretics of our Day, especially by 
the English Sectaries, and of their foul dealing herein by partial and false 
Translations, to the advantage of their Heresies, in their English Bibles used 
and authorized since the Time of Schism. Hheims, 1582. Fulke's Defence 
of the Sincere and True Translation of the Holy Scriptures into the English 
Tongue, published in London the year following, contains a sufficient reply to 
most of his cavils ; in respect of sincerity, I think, to all. The most impor- 
tant work in later times is Ward's Errata of the Protestant Bible, Dublin, 
1810. In addition to these, there are many hostile criticisms upon our ver- 
sion scattered over various polemical works. 



166 TEENCH ON A UTR. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

kv Tract, " in all," i. e., " inter omnes" (a masculine and not a 
neuter), was open to them ; it was the interpretation adopt- 
ed by many of the ancient fathers ; grammatically it can be 
perfectly justified ; it is accepted to the present day by many 
who are not in the least drawn to it by doctrinal, but pure- 
ly by philological interests, and it is certainly very idle to 
complain of them that they preferred it. 

Setting, then, such passages aside, I will adduce one or two 
others of a different character. The first is one where this 
charge has been sometimes allowed by writers of our own 
communion. Thus Professor Stanley is inclined to ascribe 
to "theological fear or partiality" that, in St. Paul's state- 
ment, " Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink this cup of 
the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood 
of the Lord" (1 Cor. xi., 27), they have substituted " and" for 
u or." I have no suspicion that they did this " in order to 
avoid the inference that the Eucharist might be received 
under one kind." In the first place, there is authority for 
" and ;" hardly, to my mind, sufficient authority, but so much 
that an eminent scholar like Fritzche, with no theological 
leaning on one side or the other, even now prefers it, and 
Lachmann has given it a place in his text. Moreover, such 
an inference from these words is so extravagantly absurd, so 
refuted by several other statements in this very chapter, that 
I can not see how they should have cared to exclude it. Even 
had they been willing to sacrifice truth and honesty, they 
were under no temptation to do so. They probably accept- 
ed rat as the right reading. 

Gal. v., 6. — "Faith tohich worJceth by love." It was for a 
long time a favorite charge of the Romanists, even in the 
face of their own Vulgate, which has rightly " fides quae per 
caritatem operatiir" in the face, too, of the invariable use of 
evepyeiadai as a middle verb in the New Testament (Rom. vii., 
5 ; 2 Cor. i., 6 ; iv., 12 ; Ephes. iii., 20 ; James v., 16), that we 
had given to hepyovfiiuri an active sense when it ought to 
have a passive ; and that we had done this, dreading lest 



ON SOME UNJUST CHARGES, ETC. 16 7 

there should be found here any support for their doctrine of 
the " fides formata," as the faith which justifies. They would 
have had the words translated " faith which is wrought on," 
i.e., animated, stirred up, "by love." Other unfriendly crit- 
ics have repeated the charge. There is no need, however, to 
refute it, as the later Roman Catholic expositors, Windisch- 
rnann, for instance,* have acknowledged the accuracy of our 
translation, have accepted it as the only true one, and thus 
implicitly allowed the injustice of this charge. 

Indeed, it is not too much to say that if, in the heat of 
earlier controversy, any shadow of unfair advantage might 
seem to have been taken by the first Protestant translators 
after the Reformation, those of King James's Bible were care- 
ful to forego and renounce every thing of the kind. Thus it 
was a complaint, and I can not esteem it an unreasonable 
one, on the part of Roman Catholic assailants of our earlier 
versions,! that they rendered eiduXov "image," and not "idol;" 
and £idu)\o\drpr}Q " worshiper of images" and not " worshiper 
of idols" or " idolater ;" in this way confounding the honor 
paid in the Roman Church to images with the idol-worship 
of heathenism. They urged that, however we might repro- 
bate and condemn the former, it was confessedly an entirely 
different thing from the latter; while yet our translators 
went out of their way, and departed from the more natural 
rendering of eidtoXop, for the purpose of including both under 
a common reproach; that, indeed, by such renderings as this, 
"How agreeth the temple of God with images?" (2 Cor. vi., 
16), they suggested and helped forward the destruction of 
these in all the churches through the land. The complaint 
was a just one, and our last translators seem to have so re- 
garded it. They have nowhere employed the offensive term, 
but always used "idolater" and "idol." Thus, compare 
1 Cor. x., 7; 1 John v., 21, in our version, with the same in 

* Erklarung des Brief es an die Galater, Mainz, 1843, p. 131. 
t See Ward's Errata of the Protestant Bible, p. 63 ; compare Fulke's De- 
fence of the English Translation, ch. iii., § 1. 



168 TRENCH ON AUTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

the earlier Anglican versions ; in the latter passage, indeed, 
the Geneva had anticipated this correction. 

In respect of objections sometimes made by Dissenters 
against our translation, it would be to little profit to make 
this an occasion of entering on the long controversies be- 
tween the English Church, which has recognized Episcopal 
government as of divine intention and institution, and those 
bodies which deny this. In the main, those bodies, in con- 
senting, with no outward constraint upon them, to use the 
Authorized Version, have admitted that in this matter no 
very grievous wrong is done to them ; nor, it must be owned, 
are there any loud complaints or charges of unfairness upon 
this score made at the present day. Still, such do from time 
to time make themselves heard. I shall content myself with 
observing that, if not in all, yet in nearly all, those passages 
which are most objected to, we have merely followed ver- 
sion^ preceding, and those not exclusively the Bishops' Bible 
or Cranmer's, but Tyndale's and the Geneva — neither of them 
with any very strong sympathy for our Church government. 
For instance, it was the Geneva which had the credit of re- 
storing " Church" instead of" congregation" as the rendering 
of kKK\r)<Tla. Then, too, it has been often said, and the charge 
is by no means obsolete, that the translation of iinaKOTrovQ by 
"overseers" at Acts xx., 28, and not by "bishops," as else- 
where, is a flagrant piece of dishonesty, committed in the 
hope of in this manner obscuring the fact that there were 
many " bishops" in the single Church of Ephesus, ergo that 
"bishop"^" presbyter." But so clear is it that tVioxoTroe is 
here not the technical name of an office, but the expression 
of the fact of oversight, that Tyndale, Cranmer, Coverdale, 
the Geneva, had all so rendered it before. Again, what " par- 
ty zeal" was at work when ettktkotti) was rendered "bishop- 
ric" (Acts i., 20), or what we could hope to gain from this 
translation, it is difficult to see. " Charge," or some such 
word, would be preferable, for the same reason that kiricrtcoiroQ 
(Acts xx., 28) is better rendered " overseer" than " bishop," 



ON SOME UNJUST CHARGES, ETC. i 6 o, 

namely, because the word is not technical and official; but in 
employing "bishopric" we did but retain the rendering of 
Wicliffe, Tyndale, Coverdale, and Cranmer. 

The complaint that there were Calvinistic, as against Ar- 
minian, leanings in our translators, modifying, consciously or 
unconsciously, the rendering of various passages, differs from 
all other with which in this chapter I have to deal, that it is 
not urged exclusively by parties external to our Church, but 
proceeds quite as much and as often from those within it as 
from tljose without. This charge rests mainly, though not 
exclusively, on the three following places, Matt, xx., 23 ; Acts 
ii.,27 ; Heb. x., 38. It may be worth while to speak a few 
words severally upon each. 

Matt, xx., 23. — "To sit on my right hand and on my left 
is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it 
is prepared of my Father." On this rendering, to which the 
Geneva Version showed the way, Professor Scholefield does 
not scruple to say," By foisting in the supernumerary words 
[it shall be given], we make the passage contain a doctrine 
directly contrary to other places of Scripture : ex. gr., John 
xvii., 2; Rev. iii., 21 :" and Dr. Beard: "The Calvinism of 
the Geneva Version stands out here in bold relief."* And, 
indeed, this charge of something like bad faith in our render- 
ing of this passage reaches very far back. It occupies a 
foremost place in the array of charges brought against our 
version by Robert Gell.f " This translation," he complains, 

* Revision of the English Bible, p. 309. 

t In the Preface, unpaged, but p. 12-17 of his Essay toward the Amend- 
ment of the last English Translation of the Bible, folio; London, 1659. This 
work is chiefly remarkable as being the first — the first, at least, with which I 
am acquainted — which brings a series of accusations of deliberate mistransla- 
tion against the authors of our version. The book, a folio of more than 
eight hundred pages, but containing exceedingly little on the subject which it 
professes to treat, and that little mainly having to do with the Old Testament, 
is not likely to be in the hands of many readers ; but those who miss it have 
not missed much. Gell was a really learned man, but cross-grained, ill-tem- 
pered, in his reaction against Calvinistic excesses running into dangerous ex- 
tremes on the other side ; and his works, if the others may be judged by this 



1 70 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

" makes our Lord absolutely to deny that he hath any pow- 
er to give the honor of sitting at his right hand and left, and 
so they rob the Lord Jesus of his regalia, his royalties, and 
those honors which he hath right and authority to bestow ;" 
with some four pages more in the same style, aggravating 
the greatness of the offense which they have herein commit- 
ted. Now I do not count it necessary to discuss the correct- 
ness or incorrectness of this rendering ; I will only observe 
that such a scholar as the present Bishop of Ely, one certain- 
ly not supposed to have any Calvinistic leanings, after a full 
and careful consideration purely grammatical,* is disposed to 
leave the passage as it now stands, to supply, as our transla- 
tors have done, a lodnaerm eKeivoig, and to reject the proposed 
emendation resting on the assumption that a\\d is here =ei 
fifi. Meyer, who has certainly no doctrinal interest to over- 
bear his philological, speaks with still greater decision on the 

sample, have their bushels of chaff with scarcely their grains of wheat. In 
proof, however, that he has the latter, I will quote here some objections which 
he makes against one passage in our version, where certainly he has right and 
reason on his side. I allude to Heb. x., 34 : " For ye . . . took joyfully the 
spoiling of your goods, knoioing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better 
and an enduring substance." He has right so far as he affirms that this 
translation might be bettered, that kavToig, or tv tavroiq, should rather be 
construed with t^eiv than with jlvwckovteq. "The words," he says, "are 
inverted and changed from the genuine order of them, which is extant in the 
Greek — Yiv&gkovtzq i'x av tavrole KpdrTova virap%iv Iv ovpavolg ical fievovaav, 
which I render thus : ' Knowing that ye have in yourselves better wealth in 
heaven, and that which will endure.' What a difference is here! That 
ti-anslation persuades men that they shall have hereafter in heaven a better 
kind of wealth. The true reading of these words supposes believers to have 
already a real possession of the better and more enduring substance in them- 
selves, so that they take the spoiling of their outward goods with joy ; . . . 
which order of words is wholly neglected by all the printed English transla- 
tions that I have yet seen ; and hereby the sense of the Holy Spirit is much 
obscured, which points at the present and real possession of the better and 
durable riches which 'Wisdom hath, and brings with her to the believing 
soul' (Prov. viii., 10)." All this is very good ; but when Gell goes on to af- 
firm that the mistranslation was intentional, lest it might appear from the 
passage, rightly translated, that there was inherent righteousness in God's 
saints, which is a great point with him, this is only too much of a piece with 
the whole tone of his book. 

* The Text of the English Bible considered, second edition, p. 71-76. 



ON SOME UNJUST CHARGES, ETC. \^\ 

matter : " Jesus weist hier die fragliche Bitte mit der unum- 
wundenen Erklarung ab : die Verleihung des gebetenen ge- 
hore zu den Reservaten Gottes : er der Messias habe diese 
Befugniss nicht." 

Acts ii., 47. — "The Lord added to the Church daily such 
as should be saved." It is urged against our translators that 
in the original it is not tovq o-ojOrjo-ofieyovQ, which would alone 
have justified this rendering, but tovq a^o^ivovQ. Now ad- 
mitting, which many scholars would refuse to do, that the 
Greek imperfect participle can never have the force which is 
given to it here; admitting, I say, this, the explanation would 
still be sufficiently easy of their slight departure from an ac- 
curate rendering, without ascribing to them, or those who 
went before them in this translation, any undue dogmatic 
bias. They were perplexed with a language which spoke of 
those as already saved who only became saved through be- 
ing thus added to the Church of the living God. They prob- 
ably did not clearly perceive that by this language the sacred 
historian meant to say that in this act of adherence to the 
Church, and to Christ its Head, these converts were saved, 
delivered from the wrath to come ; " those that did escape," 
Hammond renders it. They had no wish, except to avoid a 
fancied difficulty, and I do not believe that the thought of 
predestination, least of all of predestination as involving rep- 
robation, once entered into their minds, however others may 
have since employed the words as a support for the doctrine. 
Indeed, it is well worthy of note that the Rhemish Version 
gives precisely the same future meaning to tovq cno^ofxivovg, 
and renders " they that should be saved." 

Heb. x., 38. — " Now the just shall live by faith ; but if any 
man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." 
Bishop Pearson* brings a charge of mala fides against Beza, 
the first who rendered khv vTcoa-eiX^-ai " si quis se subduxe- 
rit." But if bad faith in bim, bad faith also in all who ac- 
cepted from him this rendering of the words, and became ac- 
* Minor Theological WorJcs, vol. ii., p. 264. 

Dd 



1 72 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

cessories after the fact. The charge, not always in language 
quite so strong, reappears continually; no objection to the 
entire good faith of our translators is indeed oftener urged. 
In our own times, Professor Blunt* has not hesitated to af- 
firm that the doctrinal tendencies of our translators exer- 
cised here an unwarrantable influence on their work. So, 
too, the present Bishop of Ely, who has a long and learned 
note upon the subject,! plainly thinks the case not a good 
one for any concerned in it. No unprejudiced person, it is 
said, can read the verse in the original, and not acknowledge 
that the person whose drawing back is supposed possible in 
the second clause of the verse is " the just" of the first clause. 
So Tyndale had translated it: "But the just shall live by 
faith ; and if he withdraw himself," etc.; Coverdale and Cran- 
mer in the same way. But this verse, so rendered, would 
have contradicted the doctrine of final perseverance; and 
therefore, it is said, in the Geneva Version, Beza's way of 
escape from this conclusion was eagerly grasped at, and 
"any" there substituted for "he," and "any man" in our 
version. Now I certainly myself think that SiKaiog is the 
nominative to {/Troorf/X^rat, and that the passage does contra- 
dict the doctrine of final perseverance in its high Calvinistic 
or necessitarian shape. But to the present day, the other 
scheme of the verse, that, namely, of our translation, which 
would disengage an avdpoj-rroQ or a rig from &Vo»oc, and make 
it the nominative to vTroareiXrjrai, is maintained by scholars 
such as De Wette and Winer,J who are certainly as remote 
as well can be from any Calvinistic inclinations. 

There is, lastly, the charge made by Avians and Unitarians. 
I will content myself here with urging the fact that our trans- 
lators, so far from pushing advantages against these too far, 
if they have erred any where, erred rather in the opposite ex- 
treme. One passage has already been dealt w T itb, namely, 

* Duties of the Parish Priest, p. 57. 

t The Text of the English Bible considered. Cambridge, 1833, p. 78-86. 

X Gramm.,% 49,2. 



ON SOME UNJUST CHARGES, ETC. 1 73 

Col. i., 15, where they have thus fallen short of the force of 
their original. Two others present themselves to me, in one 
of which certainly, in the other probably, they have done the 
same. 

The first of these is John v., 18: "Therefore the Jews 
sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken 
the Sabbath, but said also that God icas his father {jraripa 
'ihiov tXeye rbv 0edv), making himself equal with God." It is 
strange that our translators, who have recognized in so many 
places the emphatic character of \Zioq (as at Matt, xxv., 14; 
John i.,41 ; Tit. ii., 9 ; 1 Pet. iii., 1), in some of which it is very 
doubtful whether this recognition ought to have found place,* 
should have failed to recognize it here, where the whole con- 
text imperiously demands its recognition. Unless Christ had 
claimed that God was his oion father in a special, peculiar 
sense not common to him and to all men, or at least to him 
and all the elect nation, what accusation of blasphemy could 
the Jews have founded upon this? for had not God chal- 
lenged this name (Mai. i.,6), and prophets given it to him? 
or how could the words which follow, " making himself equal 
with God," which are evidently explanatory of the claim 
which he made, have fitted that vaguer and more general as- 
sertion of God as his father ? It is impossible to doubt that 
there is here on Christ's part an assertion that he was God's 
oic?i son, his son by nature, as others are his sons by adoption 
and grace. But this assertion does not come out in our ver- 
sion with at all the clear distinctness which it has in the orig- 
inal. 

The other passage is Tit. ii., 13 : "Looking for that blessed 
hope and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our 
Saviour Jesus Christ" This verse, thus punctuated, and this 

* See Winer, Gramm., § 22, 7. Meyer demands that it shall al 'ways be 
considered emphatic, never equivalent to the " proprius" of later Latin. Yet 
I can not but see in this an example of that virtuosity, that pushing of mat- 
ters to the extreme, which not unfrequently mars the exegesis of this very 
distinguished scholar. 



1 74 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

is the punctuation of the edition of 1611, namely, with a com- 
ma after " God," does not identify, but clearly distinguishes 
between " the great God," that is, the Father, and " our Sav- 
iour Jesus Christ." I shall not enter into the grammatical 
questions involved in this verse; they are admirably dealt 
with by Professor Ellicott, in loco, who shows that, while this 
of our translators must always remain grammatically a pos- 
sible rendering of the words, it is far more probable that they 
should be rendered so as to contain an explicit confession of 
the Godhead of the Son, even as they were taken to do by 
many of the great teachers of the early Church, namely, thus: 
"Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our 
great God and Saviour Jesus Christ." Modern editors of 
the Authorized Version have sought to arrive, so far as they 
could, at the same result by abolishing the comma after "the 
great God." JE>ut this they have no right to do. The inten- 
tion of the authors of our version was plainly the other way ; 
and unacknowledged revisions of this kind, even where we 
may think them made in the right direction, are altogether 
to be condemned. 

I freely acknowledge that I have not in this chapter an- 
swered all, or nearly all, the objections which from these sev- 
eral quarters have been made against our version, but I have 
endeavored to show that some, at least, of those which are 
counted the strongest, and, as such, are oftenest brought for- 
ward, are capable of being successfully rebutted, and would 
fain draw from this a conclusion that the spirit and temper 
in which this translation was carried out was, in all its lead- 
ing features, one of fairness, impartiality, and justice to all. 



OX THE BEST 3IEAXS OF CARRYING OUT A REVISION. If 5 



CHAPTER XIL 

ON THE BEST MEANS OP CARRYING OUT A REVISION. 

I have thus endeavored to make as just an estimate as I 
could of the merits, and, where such exist, of the defects, of 
our Authorized Version. In pointing out some of these last, 
I trust I have nowhere spoken a word inconsistent with the 
truest reverence for its authors, the profoundest gratitude to 
them for the treasure with which they have enriched the En- 
glish Church. Such word I certainly have not intended to 
utter; and I can truly say, that if a close and minute exam- 
ination of parts of their work reveals flaws which one had 
not suspected before, it also makes us conscious how infinite 
its merits are, discovers to us not a few of these whereof we 
had hitherto been only partially aware. 

A few words in conclusion. They shall be, first, on the 
difficulties and dangers which manifestly beset a revision ; 
and, secondly, on the manner in which these, or some of these, 
might be best overcome. 

Among these difficulties, I will not more than touch on that 
of the formation of a Greek text which the revised version 
should seek to represent ; and yet it is a difficulty of enor- 
mous magnitude, and lying at the very threshold of the work. 
Let it once be admitted that any change is to take place, and 
it will be clearly impossible to rest content with the text 
which our translators used. Take those cases where every 
critical edition of later times, and on overwhelming evidence, 
has preferred some other readings to theirs. Thus, could we, 
for instance, refuse to change "King of saints" into "King 
of nations" Rev. xv., 3 ? " zeal" into either " toil" or " labor," 
Col.iv., 13? "carried about" into "carried away" Heb. xiii., 
9 ? " an ass" into " a son," Luke xiv., 5 ? " Why callest thou 



1 76 TBENCH ON A UTH. VEBSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

me good?" into "Why askest thou me about the good?" Matt, 
xix., 17 ? Nor are these cases of overwhelming evidence by 
any means the hardest. These settle themselves, leaving no 
ground of appeal on behalf of the displaced reading. But 
how determine where the authorities are at all nearly bal- 
anced ? Shall it, for instance, be, " bore with their manners 
in the wilderness," or " bore them as a nurse in the wilder- 
ness" (Acts xiii., 18)? "serving the time" or "serving the 
Lord" (Rom. xii., 11)? "Greeks," or "Grecians" (Acts xi., 
20) ? with many such problems more. 

But these are not all. It is impossible but that other 
changes must find place, which would take many still more 
by surprise, and be far more offensive than any of these. In- 
deed, no other alterations in the English Bible would at all 
startle and offend to the same degree as would those which 
must follow from a reconsideration and reconstitution of the 
Greek text ; and this, even though it should be determined 
to make no single change which has not the consenting au- 
thority of all the critical editions in its favor. This much 
certainly, if this work is once taken in hand, could not be 
avoided ; for none, it is to be hoped, would be so cowardly, 
so distrustful of God's cause if left in his own keeping, so 
ready to break down the distinctions between God's Word 
and man's, or to snatch at and profit by unfair advantages, 
as to suggest that passages, if once it was thoroughly made 
out that they did not belong to the Word of God, or ought 
to be read in some other form, should yet be retained as they 
are, either because the people had become so used to them 
that a great outcry would ensue at the first discovery of their 
omission or alteration, or, more abjectly still, because they 
were serviceable for the stopping of the mouth of some here- 
tic. Every sense of honor revolts at this last suggestion. 
And yet it is not to be denied that the effect would be start- 
ling when some verse with which men all their life long have 
been familiar was left out, as Acts viiL, 37 must be ; or when 
some phrase, which had seemed a precious witness, a dictum 



ON THE BEST MEANS OF CARRYING OUT A REVISION 177 

probans for a central truth, was found now to be so modified 
as to bear this witness no longer : " the Church of God, which 
he hath purchased with his own blood," for instance, to be 
changed into " the Church of the Lord, etc." (Acts xx., 28) ;* 
or " God was manifest in the flesh" into " v:ho was manifest 
in the flesh" (l Tim. iii., 16).f But, satisfying myself with 
merely indicating this difficulty, which presents itself at the 
very outset, I pass on to others. 

We must never leave out of sight that for a great multi- 
tude of readers the English Version is not the translation of 
an inspired Book, but is itself the inspired Book. And so 
far, of course, as it is a perfectly adequate counterpart of the 
original, this is true, since the inspiration is not limited to 
those Hebrew or Greek words in which the divine message 
was first communicated to men, but lives on in whatever 
words are a faithful and full representation of these ; nay, in 
words which fall short of this, to the extent of their adequacy. 
There, and there only, where any divergence exists between 
the original and the copy, the copy is less inspired than the 
original; indeed, is not, to the extent of that divergence, in- 
spired at all. But these distinctions are exactly of a kind 
which the body of Christian people will not draw, will hard- 
ly understand when they are drawn by others. The English 
Bible is to them all which the Hebrew Old Testament, which 
the Greek Kew Testament, is to the devout scholar, and re- 
ceives from them the same undoubting affiance. They have 
never realized the fact that the divine utterance was not made 
at the first in those very English words which they read in 
their cottages and hear in their church. Who will not allow 
that the little which this faith of theirs in their English Bible 
has in excess is nearly or quite harmless ? that, on the other 
hand, the harm would be incalculable of any serious disturb- 
ance of this faith, supposing, as might only too easily happen, 
very much else to be disturbed with it ? 

* See Tregelles, The Printed Text of the New Testament, p. 231, 234. 
t Ibid., p. 22G-231. 



178 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

Neither can I count it an indifferent matter that a chief 
bond, indeed the chiefest, that binds the English Dissenters 
to us, and us to them, would thus be snapped asunder. Out 
of the fact that Nonconformity had not for the most part fix- 
ed itself into actual and formal separation from the Church 
till some time after our Authorized Version was made, it has 
followed that when the Nonconformists parted from us, they 
carried with them this translation, and continued to use and 
to cherish it, regarding it as much their own as ours. The 
Roman Catholics are, I believe, the only body in the coun- 
try who employ a version of their own. With their excep- 
tion, the Authorized Version is common ground for all in 
England who call themselves Christians — is alike the herit- 
age of all. But, even if English Dissenters acknowledged 
the necessity of a revision, which I conclude from many indi- 
cations that they do, it is idle to expect that they would ac- 
cept such at our hands. Two things, then, might happen. 
Either they would adhere to the old Authorized Version, 
which is not, indeed, very probable, or they would carry out 
a revision, it might be two or three, of their own. In either 
case, the ground of a common Scripture, of an English Bible 
which they and we hold equally sacred, would be taken from 
us; the separation and division, which are now the sorrow, 
and perplexity, and shame of England, would become more 
marked, more deeply fixed than ever. Then, further, while 
of course it would be comparatively easy to invite our breth- 
ren of the Episcopal Church in America to take share in our 
revision, yet many causes might hinder their acceptance of 
this invitation, or their acquiescence in the work as we found 
it expedient to do it. Thus the issue might only too easily 
be, that we should lose in respect of them also the common 
ground of one and the same Scripture, which we now pos- 
sess. Such a loss, either in regard of the English Dissenters 
or American churchmen, would not be a slight one, nor one 
deserving to be regarded with indifference. 

Another most serious consideration presents itself. Is it 



ON THE BEST MEANS OF CARRYING OUT A REVISION. 179 

likely that one revision will satisfy ? If conducted with mod- 
eration, it will probably leave much untouched about which 
it will still be possible to raise a question. It can not be 
but there will be some who will think the revision ought to 
have been carried much further — who will refuse to accept 
the compromise, which a revision in any case must prove.* 
Is it not inevitable that, after a longer or shorter period, an- 
other revision, and on that another, will be called for ? Will 
not, in this way, all sense of stability pass away from our 
English Scripture ? And to look at a mere material fact — 
the Bibles in the hands of our people, in what agreement 
with one another, after a little while, will they be ? It is idle 
to expect that the great body of our population will keep 
pace with successive changes, and provide themselves with 
the latest revision. Inability to meet the expense, or unwil- 
lingness to do so, or a love of the old to which they have 
grown accustomed, a foregone conclusion that the changes 
are for the worse or that they are immaterial, lack of inter- 
est in the subject, will all contribute to hinder this. The in- 
conveniences, and much more than inconveniences, of such a 
state of things assuredly will not be slight. This prospect, 
indeed, so little alarms the author of an article in the Edin- 
burg Review^ " On the State of the English Bible," that he- 
proposes the institution of a permanent commission, which 
shall be always altering, always embodying in a new and im- 
proved edition the latest allowed results of Biblical criticism. 
It was startling enough to read somewhere else a proposal 
that the Authorized Version should be revised once in ev- 
ery fifty years ; but this proposal, if one could suppose there 
was the slightest chance that it would be acceded to, is most 
alarming of all. 

These are the main arguments, as it seems to me, against 

* Upon this subject, see some admirable remarks in an article, ' ' Revision 
of the Authorized Version of the Bible," in the Christian Remembrancer, vol. 
xxxii., p. 467 sqq. The discussion on the subject, and on the difficulties 
which it presents, is excellent throughout. f October, 1 855. 



1 80 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

a revision of our version. None will deny their weight. In- 
deed, there are times when the whole matter presents itself 
as so full of difficulty and doubtful hazard that one could 
be well content to resign all gains that would accrue from 
this revision, and only ask that all things might remain as 
they are. But this, I am persuaded, is impossible : however 
we may be disposed to let the question alone, it will not let 
us alone. It has been too effectually stirred ever again to 
go to sleep ; and the difficulties with which it is surrounded, 
be they few or many, will have at no distant day to be en- 
countered. The time will come when the perils of remain- 
ing where we are will be so manifestly greater than the per- 
ils of action, that action will become inevitable. There will 
be danger in both courses, for that saying of the Latin mor- 
alist is a profoundly true one, " Nunquam periclum sine per- 
iclo vincitur ;" but the lesser danger will have to be chosen, 
and that lesser danger will wait upon the course which I de- 
sire, not that the Church should now take, but should pre- 
pare herself for hereafter taking — should regard as one to- 
ward which we are inevitably approaching.* 

In respect of the actual steps which it will be then advisa- 
ble to take, I can not think that, even when the matter is 
seriously undertaken, there should, for a considerable time, 
be any interference with the English text. Let come togeth- 
er, and, if possible, not of self-will, but with some authoriza- 
tion, royal or ecclesiastical, or both, such a body of scholars 
and divines as would deserve and would obtain the confi- 
dence of the whole Church. Fortunately, no points at issue 
among ourselves threaten to come into discussion or debate, 
so that the unhappy divisions of our time would not here 
add any additional embarrassment to a matter embarrassed 
enough already. Nay, of such immense importance would 

* There is an interesting article in the Theol. Studien tend Kritiken, 1849, 
p. 427 sqq., with the title "Die Bibel nach der deutschen Uebersetzung des 
D.Martin Luther," dealing with the same questions, in respect of the great- 
ly honored German translation of Luther, as agitate us in respect of our own. 



ON THE BEST MEANS OF CARRYING OUT A REVISION, igl 

it be to carry with us, in whatever might be done, the whole 
Christian people of England, that it would be desirable to in- 
vite all scholars, all who represented any important portion 
of the Biblical scholarship in the land, to assist with their 
suggestions here, even. though they might not belong to the 
Church. Of course they would be asked as scholars, not as 
Dissenters. But it were a matter so deeply to be regretted 
that they should revise and we should revise, thus parting 
company in the one thing which now holds us strongly to- 
gether, while it would be so hopeless, indeed so unreasonable, 
to expect that they should accept our revision, having them- 
selves had no voice in it, that we ought not to stand on any 
punctilios here, but should be prepared rather to sacrifice ev- 
ery thing non-essential for the averting of such a catastro- 
phe. Setting aside, then, the so-called Baptists, who of course 
could not be invited, seeing that they demand not a trans- 
lation of the Scripture, but an interpretation, and that in 
their own sense,* there are no matters of doctrine or even of 
discipline likely to come into debate which should render it 
impossible for such Dissenters as accept our doctrinal arti- 
cles to take a share in this work, as regarded not from its 
ecclesiastical, but its scholarly point of view. All points like- 

* The author of a review, on the whole a courteous one, of this book in a 
Baptist journal, The Freeman, November 17, 1858, assures me that I am mis- 
taken in supposing that the Baptists claim to substitute "dip," "immerse," 
or " wash" for "baptize" wherever it occurs in the New Testament. " Many 
scholars among us — indeed, all the most eminent whom we happen to know, 
are altogether indisposed to alter the word." I find it hard to reconcile 
this with the fact that in their revision, that, namely, of the American Bible 
Union, "baptize" is always changed into "immerse," and "baptism" into 
" immersion," and " Baptist" into " Immerser !" Thus, in the Gospel of St. 
Mark alone, "John was immersing in the desert, and preaching the immer- 
sion of repentance," i., 4; "I indeed immerse you in water, but he will im- 
merse you in the Holy Spirit," ver. 8; "The head of John the Immerser," 
vi., 25; "He that believeth and is immersed shall be saved," xvi.,16; and 
the same wherever I have examined it. The writer of this article has taken 
some offense at the phrase "so-called Baptists." Certainly none was in- 
tended ; but only a protest, the shortest I could make, against being sup- 
posed to admit that they who assumed this name more realized the truth of 
baptism, or otherwise made more of it, than we do ourselves. 



182 TRENCH ON A UTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

ly to come under discussion would be points of pure scholar- 
ship, or would only involve that universal Christianity com- 
mon to them and us; or, if more than this, they would be 
points about which there is equally a difference of opinion 
within the Church as in the bodies without it, for instance, 
as between Arminian and Calvinist, which difference would 
not be avoided by their absence. 

Let, then, such a body as this, inspiring confidence at once 
by their piety, their learning, and their prudence, draw out 
such a list of emendations as are lifted beyond all doubt in 
the eye of every one whose voice has any right to be heard 
on the matter — eschewing all luxury of emendation, abstain- 
ing from all which is not of primary necessity, from much in 
which they might have fitly allowed themselves, if they had 
not been building on foundations already laid, and which 
could not, without great inconvenience, be disturbed— using 
the same moderation, and even the same self-denial here, 
which Jerome used in his revision of the Latin. Let them 
very briefly, but with just as much learned explanation as 
should be needful, justify these emendations where they were 
not self-evident. Let them, if this should be their conviction, 
express the sense of the desirableness that these should at 
some future day be introduced into the received text, as 
bringing it into more perfect accord and harmony with the 
original Scriptures. Having done this, let them leave these 
emendations to ripen in the public mind, gradually to com- 
mend themselves to all students of God's holy Word. Sup- 
posing the emendations such as ought to, and would, do this, 
there would probably, before very long, be a general desire 
for their admission into the text, and in due time this admis- 
sion might follow. All abrupt change would thus be avoid- 
ed — all forcing of alterations on those not as yet prepared to 
receive them. That which at length came in would excite 
no surprise, no perplexity, no offense, or, at most, a very 
small amount of these, having already, in the minds of many, 
displaced that of which it now at length took openly the 
room. 



OX THE BEST MEANS OF' CARRYING OUT A REVISION. J83 

It is indeed quite true that "no man, having drunk old 
wine, straightway desireth new ; for he saith, The old is bet- 
ter ;" but it is on " straightway" that the emphasis, in this 
saying of our Lord, must be laid. In those spiritual things 
to which he intended that we should transfer this saying, a 
man may, and will, if he is wise, after a while desire the new. 
It may have a certain unwelcome harshness and austerity at 
the first ; the man may have to overcome that custom which 
is as a second nature before he heartily aifects it. But still, 
just as the Western Church accepted in a little Jerome's 
revision of the Latin Version, notwithstanding the opposition 
which it met at the first,* and even the uproar and extreme 
confusion in the churches which its first introduction would 
sometimes cause when some novelty took the place of a read- 
ing with which all were familiar, or, to come nearer home, 
just as our ancestors grew gradually in love with our pres- 
ent translation, churchmen weaning themselves from the 
Bishops' Bible, and Puritans from the Geneva — as one and 
the other of these versions fell quite out of use, churchmen 
and Puritans finally agreeing in the decision, not that the old 
was better, but the new — so will it be here. What amount 
of difficulty those who lived in the reign of James the First 
found in reconciling themselves to the change it is hard to 
say. That the old versions had struck deep root in the affec- 
tions of many is evident from the fact that the Bishops' Bi- 
ble, if I mistake not, sometimes, and the Geneva Bible cer- 
tainly many times, were reprinted, even after they had been 
formally superseded by the present version. With the ex- 
ception of this testimony, we have singularly little on the 
subject in the contemporary religious literature, the very ab- 
sence of such notices seeming to imply that the difficulty 
was not very great. In one respect it ought to be much 
smaller now, inasmuch as, careful as King James's transla- 
tors were not to change wantonly, and for mere change's 
sake, still the alterations which they made were consider- 
* See Van Ess, Gesckichte der Vulgata, Tubingen, 1 824, p. 109-145. 



184 TRENCH ON A UTR. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

able, many times more than would be necessary or desirable 
now. 

And even if it were never thought good that this final step 
should be taken, that these emendations should be transplant- 
ed into the text, if I am mistaken in imagining such an issue 
one sooner or later not to be averted, what an invaluable 
help to earnest students of Scripture such a volume might 
prove! With a little management, its more learned portions 
might be so separated off in notes as to leave the substance 
of it accessible even to the English reader, who might thus 
be put in possession, though in a somewhat roundabout and 
less effectual way, of all which a revision would have given 
him. If, too, he had been shaken by rumors of the inaccura- 
cy of his English Bible, he might here see, on the warrant of 
those best qualified to judge, how very little way this inac- 
curacy reached, in what comparatively unessential matters 
it moved ; or, if this could not always be asserted, yet this 
much might, that a revision of his Bible would not draw aft- 
er it, even in the minutest particular, a revision of his creed. 
Granting that nothing else should come of it, such a volume 
might prove an effectual check to wanton and mischievous 
agitations, to disquieting suggestions that a revised Bible 
would present God's truth in other lights from those in 
which it is presented now, and, as such, the advantage of it 
might be great. 

Nor is it at all impossible that the very unsettlement of 
men's minds, consequent upon the stirring of this question, 
might be found to bring with it some compensating gain. 
This putting to the proof of the words in which God's mes- 
sage had hitherto been conveyed to them, might it not for 
some be a motive to a more accurate and thoughtful consid- 
ering of the message itself? It would not, I imagine, be for 
most of us unprofitable to discover that the words in which 
the truth has hitherto reached us are exchangeable for other, 
in some places, it may be, for better, words. The shock, un- 
pleasant and unwelcome as it would perhaps prove at the 



ON TEE BEST MEANS OF CARRYING OUT A REVISION 185 

first, might yet be a startling of many from a dull, lethargic, 
unprofitable reading of God's Word ; a breaking up of that 
hard crust of formality which so easily overgrows our study 
of the Scripture ; while in the rousing of the energies of the 
mind to defend the old, or, before admitting, thoroughly to 
test the new, more insight into it might be gained, with more 
grasp of its deeper meaning, than years of lazy familiarity 
would have given. For, indeed, according to a profound 
proverb, "what is ever seen is never seen;" and a daily fa- 
miliarity with Scripture, full as it is of innumerable blessings, 
carries, like each other privilege, its dangers with it — dangers 
which the course here recommended might contribute much 
to remove. 

Thus much I have thought it desirable to say on this mo- 
mentous subject. I am not so sanguine as to believe that, 
with all precautions taken, great and serious, it might be 
quite unexpected, difficulties would not attend this enter- 
prise. There w T ould need no little wisdom and prudence to 
bring it to a successful end. Still it might be humbly hoped 
that by Him who is ever with his Church this prudence and 
this wisdom would be granted. And, lastly, let me observe 
that when we make much of the inconveniences which must 
wait upon any such step, we ought never to leave out of 
sight their transitory character, as contrasted with the per- 
manent character of the gain. How large an amount of in- 
convenience men have willingly encountered with only some 
worldly object in view, where they have felt that the incon- 
venience would be merely temporary, the gain enduring — as 
in the rectification of the coinage, the readjustment of the 
calendar. And here too, serious as the inconvenience might 
be at the first, and during the period of transition, still it 
would every day be growing slighter; it would be but for a 
few years at the longest ; while the gain, always supposing 
the work to be well and wisely done, would be forever ; it 
would be riches and strength for the English Church to the 
end of time. 



APPENDIX. 



At a time like the present, when the subject of the Kevision of the 
Authorized Version is occupying so much attention, it might be in- 
teresting to some to have before them a tolerably correct list of works 
bearing on the subject, which have been published in this country or 
in America, either urging a revision or dissuading one, or showing by 
actual example how such might be carried out. The list is as com- 
plete as I could make it, and thus includes not merely works of im- 
portance, but also some which are of comparatively slight value or of 
none. I have not considered that entirely new translations belong 
fitly to this list, but only those which accept our Version as a basis 
and point of departure, and thus in their agreement with, or dissent 
from it, may be regarded as offering a running commentary and 
criticism upon it. 

An Essay toward the Amendment of the last English Translation of the Bible, 
by Eobert Gell, D.D. Folio. London, 1659. 

Errata of the Protestant Bible, by Thomas Ward. 4to. London, 1688. 

An Essay for a New Translation of the Bible, by H. B. [Hugh Boss ; see Todd's 
Life of Bishop Walton, vol. i., p. 134], a Minister of the Church of England. 1702. 

A New and Literal Translation of all the Books of the Old and New Testament, 
with Notes critical and explanatory, by Anthony Purver. Folio, 2 vols. London, 
1764. 

Prospectus of a New Translation of the Holy Bible, by the Rev. Alexander 
Geddes. 4to. Glasgow, 1786. 

Letter to the Bight Bev. the Lord Bishop of London [Bishop Lowth], being an 
Appendix to a Prospectus of a New Translation, by the same. 4to. London, 1787. 

Reasons for revising by Authority our present Version of the Bible. 8vo. 
Cambridge, 1788. 

Observations on the Expediency of revising the present English Version of the 
Four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, by John Symonds, Professor of Modern 
History in the University of Cambridge. 4to. Cambridge, 1789. 

A Historical View of the English Biblical Translations, the Expediency of re- 
vising by Authority our present Translation, and the means of executing such a 
Revision, by William Newcome, Bishop of Waterford. 8vo. Dublin, 1792. 

Observations on the Expediency of revising the present English Version of the 
Epistles, by the same. 4to. Cambridge, 1794. 

Ee. 



188 TRENCH ON A TJTH. VERSION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

Letter to the Bishop of Ely on the Subject of a New and Authoritative Trans- 
lation of the Holy Scriptures, by George Burges. 8vo. Peterborough, 1796. 

Bemarks upon the Critical Principles adopted by Writers who have at various 
times recommended a New Translation of the Bible as expedient and necessary, by 
Archbishop LaAvrence. 8vo. Oxford, 1820. 

Beasons why a New Translation of the Bible should not be published without a 
previous Examination of all the material Passages which may be supposed to be 
misinterpreted. 8vo. Durham, 1816. 

Biblical Gleanings, by Thomas Wemyss. 8vo. York, 1816. 

Beasons in favor of a New Translation of the Holy Scriptures, by Sir J. B. 
Burgess. 8vo. London, 1819. 

A Vindication of our Authorized Translation of the Bible, by the Bev. Henry 
John Todd. 8vo. London, 1819. 

The Holy Bible in the Common Version, with Amendments of the Language, by 
Noah Webster. 8vo. New Haven, 1833. 

A Supplement to the Authorized English Version of the New Testament, by the 
Bev. Frederick Henry Scrivener. London, 1845. 

Hints for an Improved Translation of the New Testament, by the Bev. James 
Scholefield. 3d edition. London, 1850. 

A Vindication of the Authorized Version of the English Bible, by the Bev. S. C. 
Malan. London, 1856. 

Biblical Bevision: Considerations in favor of a Bevised Translation of Holy 
Scripture, by Edward Slater. London, 1856. 

The State of the English Bible, by the Bev. W. Harness. London, 1856. 

Notes on the proposed Amendment of the Authorized Version of the Holy 
Scriptures, by William Selwyn, Canon of Ely. 8vo. Cambridge, 1856. 

Bible Bevision and Translation •■ an Argument for holding fast what we have, 
by the Bev. John Cumming. 8vo. London, 1856. 

A Blea for the Bevisal of the Translation of the Bible of 1611, by F. Biff. 8vo. 
Sunderland, 1857. 

The Gospel according to St. John, after the Authorized Version, newly compared 
with the original Greek and revised, by Five Clergymen. 8vo. 2d edition. 
London, 1857. 

The Epistle of St. Paul to the Bomans, after the Authorized Version, newly 
compared with the original Greek and revised, by Five Clergymen. 8vo. Lon- 
don, 1858. 

The Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, after the Authorized Version, newly 
compared with the original Greek and revised, by Five Clergymen. 8vo. Lon- 
don, 1858. 

A Bevised English Bible the Want of the Church and the Demand of the Age, 
by John B. Beard, D.D. Small 8vo. London, 1857. 

Bevision of the Authorized Version of the Bible : an Article in the Christian 
Remembrancer, 1856, p. 451-499. 

The New Testament, revised from the Authorized Version with the aid of other 
Translations, by Edgar Taylor. Small 8vo. London. No date. 

A Plea for an Edition of the Authorized Version of Holy Scripture, with ex- 
planatory and emendatory marginal Notes, by the Bev. G. E. Biber. 8vo. Lon- 
don, 1857. 



APPENDIX. 18 g 

Reasons for holding fast the Authorized English Version of the Bible, by Alex- 
ander M'Catd, D.D. London, 1857. 

Kevision of the Holy Scriptures; an Argument against Objectors, by the Rev. 
H. Burgess. 8vo. 1857. 

The English Bible and our Duty with regard to it, by Philalethes. 8vo. Dub- 
lin, 1857. 

The Epistle to the Hebrews, translated from the Greek on the Basis of the 
Common English Version, with Notes. 4to. New York, American Bible Union, 
1857. 

The Epistle to the Ephesians, translated from the Greek on the Basis of the 
Common English Version, with Notes. 4to. New York, American Bible Union, 
1857. 

The Gospel according to Mark, translated from the Greek on the Basis of the 
Common English Version, with Notes. 4to. New York, American Bible Union, 
1858. 

The Second Epistle of Peter, the Epistles of John and Judas, and the Revelation, 
translated from the Greek on the Basis of the Common English Version, with 
Notes. 4to. London, 1856. 

The Epistles of Paul to the Thessalonians, translated from the Greek on the 
Basis of the Common English Version, with Notes. 4to. London, 1858. 



INDEX. 



I. PRINCIPAL TEXTS CONSIDERED. 



Pa?e 

Matt, v., 15, 16 85 

v., 21 108 

vi.,25 36 

vi.,27 134 

viii.,20 147 

ix.,36 108 

x.,4. 147 

x., 9 125 

x.,16 109 

xii.,23 132 

xi.v,8 148 

xiv.,13 149 



xiv., 24. 



85 
176 

85 
169 

83 



. 28 

xvi., 15 55 

xviiL, 33. 
xix., 17. . 
xx., 1, 11 
xx., 23 . . 
xxi., 41. . 
xxii., 3, 4, 13 . . 91 

xxiii., 24 149 

xxiii., 25 43 

xxviii., 14 ... . 99 



Mark L, 10 28 

" ii.,18 126 

" iii., 18 147 



vi., 20 , 

vi., 4 

xi., 4 

xi., 17 , 

xii'., 26. 

xiv., 72 

xvi., 2 



109 
110 
151 
101 
151 
99 
127 



Luke i., 19 
" i., 59 



.... 127 

126 

ii., 49 135 

v., 6 126 

viii.,31 80 

xi., 17 99 

xi.,48 43 

xii., 25 134 

xiii.,2 127 



Luke xiii., 7 , 
" xiv., 7 , 



xvi., 1 . . , 
xvii., 21. 
xviii., 12 

xxi., 19 . , 



Pagre 

. 37 
. 126 
. 101 
. 110 
. 125 
. 125 



John 



xxiii., 33 73 

xxiii., 42 122 

L, 3, 4 106 

ii.,8,9 85 

iii.,10 116 

iii., 11, 32 84 

iv.,6 120 

iv.,29 132 

v., 16 128 

v., 18 173 

viii.,58 131 

55 

96 

135 

110 

111 

96 



ix.,31 

x., 16 ... . 

xii., 6 

xiv., 18. . . 

xvi., 8 

xvii., 12. . 



Acts 



i., 4 106 

ii., 47 171 

iii., 1 126 

iii., 13, 26 95 

iv., 27, 30 . 
vii., 45.. . . 
x.,12 



95 
67 
129 
xi., 20 176 



45 
105 



Xll., 4 

xii., 19. . . . 

xiii.. 18 176 

xiv., 15 151 

xvii.,1 117 

xvii., 18 81,136 



xvii., 19. 
xvii., 21 
xvii., 22 
xvii., 23. 
xix, 37. 



69 

29 

152 

},82 

39 



Acts 



102 
39 
99 



Rom. 



Pag-e 
XX.. 28 177 

xxL, 3 

xxi., 15.. . 
xxiiL, 27. . 

xxv., 5 152 

xxvi.,2,7...119,120 

xxvii.,9 100 

xxvii., 10, 21 . . . 84 
xxviii., 4 124 

i.,26,27 137 

ii.,14 119 

ii., 22 152 

iii., 25 93 

i v., 1-24 80 

v., 15, 17 117 

viiL, 21 72 

xi., 2 151 

xi., 8 153 

xii., 11 176 

xv., 4 84 



1 Cor. iii., 17 . . 

" iv., 4 . . . 
" xi.,27.. 
" xiii., 12. 

2 Cor. ii.,14... 

" ii.,17... 

" iii., 5, 6 . 

11 v., 10... 

." xL.3... 



Gal. i. ; 6.. 
'■ i.,18. 



82 

40 

166 

138 

139 
140 
83 
129 
123 

122 
154 

160 



ii.. 6, 9 ... . 

iii., 22 83 

v., 6 166 

v., 19, 20 154 



Ephes. iii., 14, 15. 

" iv.,3 

iv.,18.... 
" iv.,29.... 



26 

40 

102 

155 



192 TRENCH ON A TJTH. VERSION OF NE W TESTAMENT. 



Phil, ii., 3. . 
" ii.. 13. 
" ii.i 15. 
" iii..5. 
" iv.,3. 



Col. i., 13. 
" L, 15. 
" i.,16. 
" ii., 8 . 



Pag-e 

.... 56 

.... 84 
.... 128 
.... 120 
.... 156 

.... 72 
.... 157 
.... 128 
.... 142 

" ii., 18 Ill 

" ii., 23 142 

" iv.,13.... 175 

ITHESS.iv., 6 112 

v., 22 .102 

2THESS.ii.,8 106 

" ii., 6 .. 84 

lTiM.iii.,16 177 

« iv.,1,2,8 158 

" v., 4 41 

" v., 13 106 

" vi.,2 117 

" vi.,5 103 

" vi.,8 143 

•' vi.,9 43 



1 Tim. vi., 10 . 



Pa<re 

119 



Titus ii., 13 173 

Heb.u.,16 144 

" iv.,1 105 

" iv., 8 67 

" v., 2 113 

" v., 8 54 

" v., 11 131 

" vi.,7 121 

" ix., 5 56 

" ix., 23 103 

" x.,34 170 

" x.,38 171 

" xi.,10 116 

" xi., 13 104 

" xi., 29 159 

" xii.,23 133 

" xiii.,4 165 

' : xiii.,9 175 

James i., 4, 5 84 

" i., 13 100 

" i., 26 160 

" ii.,2 ; 3 85 

' ; iii., 5 145 



Pa°re 

James v., 9 45 

1Pet.L,17 105 

" ii.,4,5 42 

" iii., 16 161 

" iv.,9 45 

2 Pet. i., 5-7 123 

" i.,14 127 

" iii., 12 113 

" iii., 16 29 



1 John v> 15. 



55 



Jude 12 161 

Rev. i., 18 22 

" iii., 2 145 

" iv.,4 80 

" iv.,5 124 

" iv.,6-9 91 

" vii., 14 115 

" xv., 2 120 

" xv., 3 175 

" xvi.,2 44 

" xxi.,12 57 

" xxi.,19,20 70 



'AftvcGog 80 

dyyeXog 23 

iffaQ.: 21,22 

didpaiog 109 

aX\oTpioe7ri<JK07ro£ . . 25 

d/xQodog 151 

(t7rdyw 105 

a7rei0eia 92 

aTTiGTia 92 

cntoKapaooKLa 106 

dpeiog irdyog 69 

datrdpiov 63 

avXr] 96 



fia<TTdZ,w. 
j3drog . . . 



136 
151 



ykevva 21,22 

yivo/xai 130 

ypafj/xaTevg 63 

SeitTLdalpKov 152 

ceXedZto* 88 



II. GREEK WORDS. 

did 121 

didicovog 91 

VivXifa.^ 150 

diXOGTCHjia 154 

SoKtio 160 

SoXoio 141 

doiiXog 91 

SvvciTog 152 



fidog. 

tXeyou 
iv. .. 



tvepyeofiai. 
i-nri 



.... 102 

.... 122 

.... Ill 

.... 122 

.... 166 

.... 120 

iTiiyivoJOKd), tTriyvit)- 

aig 27 

l7riXafij3dvoixai 144 

'EpWQ; 63 j 

ippififisvog 108, 109 : 

tacnrTpov 138 , 

srep6(p9aXfiog 20, 21 j 

tvtccupew! 28 



ivirepivrciTog 25 

Zu>ov 90,91 

ijXacia 134 

Qrjpiov 91 

6pianj3ev(t) 139 

Opovog 80 

UpocvXeoj « 153 

IcTOpku) 154 

Kavav'mjg 148 

KcnrrjXtiHo 140 

KctTafipafiivix) 112 

Kardw^tg 153 

KaraTTivbi 159 

KdTapysu) 89 

Kara(JKT]v(v(7ig 147 

KaTOTrrpov 138 

kXivt) 110 

Ko8odvr?ig 63 



Page 
KotylVOQ 94 

KTaofxai 125 

Kvpiog 78 

Xoyog 19 

XoyiZ,ofiai 80 

fxayoQ 23 

fxerdvoia 18 

fXlTplOTTClQko} . 113 

jiov6(pQa\jxoc 20 

vtujKupoc 63 

uf.LoioTra9i)Q 152 

Allow 43 

Alms 54 

Apollo, Apollos 69 

Babbler 136 

Beast 90 

Bribery 43 

By 40 

By-and-by 44 

Calvary 73 

Canaauite 147, 148 

Candy 107 

Carriage 39 

Cherubims 56 

Chrysolite * 71 

Chrysoprasus 71 

Church 39 

Comforter 24 

Convince 11 J 

Cretes, Cretians 69 

Camber 37 

Depart 43 

Devotion 38 

Each 56,57 

Easter 45 

Elias, Elijah 66 

Endeavor 40 

Every 56, 57 



INDEX. 



Page I 
OptyCLVOQ 110 ' 

ttcuq Qsov 95 

irapaK\i]TOQ 23 

rraptoig 96 

irttg 149 

Tzoifivt] 96 

7rpo/3</3a£w 148. 149 

TTpUTOTOKOQ 157 

TTliJpiOGlC 102 



oapcLoc,aapctvoc <1 

<Tsj3a(7p.a 38 

(7K£7rac7/xa 143 

<Jo<pog 92,93 



III. OTHER WORDS. 



Flix 

Fourmiller 



goodmax of the 

House . 85 

Grudge 44 



Idol. . 
Image 
Its.... 



.. 167 

. 167 

.52,53 



Jesus 67 

Jewry 45 

Joshua 67 

Kinked 59 

Ltvely 42 

Mercurius 63 

Miletum 70 

Moe, more , 59 

Nazarexe . 107 

Nazarite 107 

Nephew 41 

Noisome 43 

Oftex. 54 

Paraclete 24 



193 

Page 

(nrtp/jLoXoyog 136 

OTTvplg 94 

avXayojysw 142 

avvrrjpsoj 109, 110 

TTjpsai 97 

v\r] 145 

v7r6Suy/xa 103 

(paivofiai 129 ; 160 

(fkvapog 106 

<p9ivo7ru)piv6g 16], 162 

(ppovifiog 93 

(pvXdcrau} 96 

Pattern 103 

Pavaner, pavonear 25 

Pergamos 70 

Pcenitentia 18 

Primesautier 26 

Eeflexiox 49 

Religious 152 

Reprove Ill 

Resipiscentia 18 

Riches 54 

Sardixe sto>-e 71 

Sardius 71 

Sedition 154 

Sermo 18 

Shamefastness 59 

Slave 92 

Thought 36 

Three Taverns 71 

Timotheus, Timothy . 69 

Trifler 106 

Trouble 98 

Urbane 68 

YERBU3I 18 

TVhich 58 

Wizard 23 



THE EXD. 



CONSIDERATIONS 



ON 



THE REVISION 



ENGLISH VERSION 



NEW TESTAMENT. 



BY 

C. J. ELLICOTT, D.D., 



BISHOP OF GLOCCESTEIt AXD BRISTOL. 




NEW YORK: 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 

1873. 



TO THE MEMORY, 



EVER FRESH AND EVER TO BE HONORED, 



WILLIAM TYNDALE, 



GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 



PREFACE 



The following work is written to supply a need which, 
at the present time, may be felt by many. We seem to. 
need a Hand-book which, in an easy and popular manner, 
and yet, at the same time, with reasonable accuracy, might 
put before us the whole subject of the Revision of the 
Holy Scriptures. 

This work aspires to be such a Hand-book in reference 
to the New Testament. It has two main objects : First, 
to give the general reader that competent knowledge of 
the subject which may enable him to enter into the pres- 
ent movement with interest and intelligence. Secondly, to 
place on record some experiences that were acquired by 
the writer when engaged with others in an attempt to re- 
vise some portions of the Authorized Version of the New 
Testament. Such experiences, it is humbly believed, will 
be found useful at the present time, and may be perhaps 
permitted to minister some guidance to individual scholars 
who may be called upon to take part in the Revision now 
recommended by Convocation. 

These are the two objects of the present work — to place 
generally before the reader the work that has to be done, 
and also to offer to those who may be actually engaged in 
it some few hints as to the mode of carrying out the work. 



v i PREFACE. 

It is proper to state that the work lias been composed in 
the midst of many other pressing duties and occupations; 
and that hours snatched from daily work, or secured before 
the day's duties could commence, are all that have been 
at the disposal of the writer for the compilation of these 
notes and considerations. It is hoped that no serious inac- 
curacies will be found on the pages that follow, but it is 
frankly owned that the work has been written promptly — 
for the need seemed real — and that it has been written 
concurrently with some of the events to which it alludes. 
It was commenced a short time after the first meeting of 
Convocation this year, and it was concluded shortly after 
its second meeting. The time has thus been limited ; but 
if the book was to do any good, or to exercise any useful 
influence, its publication could not have been longer de- 
layed. 

It does not seem necessary to make remarks on any part, 
except on the samples of revision that have been, some- 
what courageously, submitted to the j udgment of the read- 
er. Great care has been bestowed upon them, but it is felt 
very honestly that they themselves will probably disclose de- 
partures from principles that may have been urged a few 
pages before. It must be so. The individual reviser is 
always liable to subjective influences that give a tinge to 
his judgment when the special passage is under his con- 
sideration, and the present reviser can not dare to hope 
that he himself, even in these few chapters, has proved to 
be free from them. So the passages are given honestly as 
samples, and nothing more ; not as the writer's ideal of a 
true revision, but as the best exemplification lie could give 
of his own rules. 



PREFACE. v ii 

The critical scholar is thus asked kindly to pass his judg- 
ment on these passages, as being what is here specified, and 
as claiming to be nothing more. 

This small volume is now offered to those who are inter- 
ested in the subject of Revision, and also, with all humili- 
ty, is placed before the Church at large as a small effort in 
a great cause that will soon largely occupy the thoughts, 
and, it is hoped, will receive the prayers of all earnest and 
devout readers of the Holy Bible. 

May the blessing of God rest on the great and holy 
cause ; and if it be not presumptuous to add the words, 
may it also be vouchsafed to this contribution to the gen- 
eral subject, humbly offered by one whose heart, at any 
rate, is thoroughly in the cause and in the work. 

C. J. Gloucestee axd Bpjstol. 

London, May 23, 1870. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. INTRODUCTION 11 

II. The Critical Value of the Text of the Authorized Version. 33 

III. Leading Characteristics of the Authorized Version 52 

IV. Nature and Limits of Revision 85 

V. Amount of Corrections likely to be Introduced 107 

VI. Objections to Revision, Valid and Invalid 151 

VII. Best Manner of Proceeding with the Work 165 

Ff 



REVISION 

OF THE 

ENGLISH NEW TESTAMENT, 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

On the 10th of February in the present year [1870] the 
Recent move- following resolutioD, proposed by the Bishop of 

ment in the ° ' ± I J r 

question. Winchester and seconded by the writer of these 
pages, was carried unanimously by both houses of the Con- 
vocation of Canterbury, viz., "To report upon the desirable- 
ness of a Revision of the Authorized Version of the Old and 
New Testament, whether by marginal notes or otherwise, in 
all those passages where plain and clear errors, whether in 
the Hebrew or Greek text originally adopted by the trans- 
lators, or in the translations made from the same, shall, on 
due investigation, be found to exist." 

That such a resolution will in due time be followed by sys- 
tematic and organized effort in the actual work of revision 
can hardly be doubted. The general tone of the discussion, 
the prevailing unanimity, though not without a full recogni- 
tion of the difficulties that surround the question,* the deep- 

* The difficulties and leading objections were stated both by the Bishop of 
Winchester and the Bishop of St. David's. The latter, with his usual acute- 
ness, gave prominence to the only objection, which, as will be seen below (see 
chap, vii.), has any real weight, viz., that such a revision might involve the 
necessity of continual revisions. The bishop, however, fully supported the 
resolution, and expressed his belief that a judicious revision would be a great 
advantage both in regard of the public and private reading of the Scriptures. 
See the report in the Guardian for Feb. 16, and in the John Bull for Feb. 12, 
p. 170. 



1 2 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

ening interest in the subject that has already shown itself, 
the expressions of public opinion in the leading journals,* all 
point to one certain issue — that ere long the serious and re- 
sponsible work of revision will actually be taken in hand. 
We are the more confirmed in this view when we take fairly 
into consideration, first, the circumstances under which the 
subject has been brought forward, and, secondly, the partial- 
ly forgotten fact that we are now only resuming a discussion 
which seriously occupied public attention twelve or thirteen 
years ago, and which was only then suspended owing to a 
sort of general feeling that we had hardly at that time the 
men or the materials forthcoming for an immediate com- 
mencement of the work. There was, however, a sort of tacit 
agreement that, whenever in God's providence a fresh call 
should seem to be addressed to us, that call should be hum- 
bly and reverently attended to, and the discussion resumed. f 
That call has certainly been made, and the time, as many rea- 
sons would seem to suggest, is not only ripe, but convenient 
for a further consideration of the question, and even for the 
commencement of the important work. Let us shortly con- 
sider both the circumstances of the present call, and the gen- 
eral aspects of the former discussion of the subject, as far as 
they may throw any light upon our present position and our 
hopes of further advance. 

Now, in the first place, it can hardly be denied that the 

* A leading article of some importance will be found in the Times for Feb. 
18. Various letters have also appeared in the same paper, some of consider- 
able ability and cogency of argument — e.g., on Feb. 26, by Dr. Scott, and by 
a " Hertfordshire Incumbent" on Feb. 21 and March 10, and by " Anglica- 
nus" on March 9. The views of Dissenters are well expressed in an article 
in The Freeman for Feb. 18, p. 133, and certainly deserve attention. 

f No better instance can he given of the prevalence of this feeling at the 
time than the general design and expressions of the revision of St. John's 
Gospel and several of St. Paul's Epistles by Five Clergymen, the first edition 
of the first part of which appeared in 1857. The writers state clearly in their 
introductory preface that they were doing their present work more by way of 
giving a sample of the manner in which they believed revision ought to be 
performed, than of preparing themselves formally to undertake the great 
work. See Preface to Revised Translation of St. John, p. ii. seq. 



INTRODUCTION. 



13 



call to reconsider the subject has been made from a very un- 
expected, quarter. No one, except those who very closely 
observe the directions and librations of modern religious 
thought, could have expected that a resolution, such as we 
have already referred to, would have been proposed in the 
Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, and, when pro- 
posed, so readily and even joyfully accepted.* It might have 
been said d priori that the way in which the question had 
been disposed of thirteen years ago supplied but little hope 
that it would have received better treatment at the present 
time. As the contrast is instructive, we may devote a few 
sentences to a short notice of what took place in Convocation 
in reference to the subject of revision when the question was 
last formally brought forward. 

On February 1, 1856, notice was given by Canon Selwyn 
Earlier proceed- that a petition would be proposed to the Upper 

mgs in Convo- x x x i L 

cation. House of Convocation requesting them to take 

into consideration an address to the crown, praying her maj- 
esty to appoint a commission for receiving and suggesting 
amendments in the Authorized Version of the Scriptures. 
The notice, it must be confessed, was rather wide and ambi- 
tious,! and, not improbably, found but moderate favor at that 

* The manner in which the message from the Upper House directing the 
appointment of a joint committee was received by the Lower House may he 
regarded as very distinctly showing how much, in the thirteen or fourteen si- 
lent years that have elapsed since the subject was last discussed, the whole 
question has ripened in the general minds of Churchmen. See the Guardian 
for Feb. 16, p. 198. 

t The exact terms of the notice of motion were as follows : 

" To propose a petition to the Upper House requesting his grace and their 
lordships to take into their consideration the subject of an address to the 
crown, praying that her most gracious majesty may be pleased to appoint a 
body of learned men well skilled in the original languages of the Holy Scrip- 
tures — 

"To consider such amendments of the Authorized Version as have been 
already proposed, and to receive suggestions from all persons who may be 
willing to offer them. 

" To communicate with foreign scholars on difficult passages when it may 
be deemed advisable. 



14 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

time among the members of Convocation. It had attracted, 
however, some attention, and in the July of the same year 
was alluded to by Mr. Hey wood in his speech on this subject 
in the House of Commons.* In the February of the follow- 
ing year it reappeared, but in a more modest and practical 
form.f The original motion was withdrawn, and the request 
limited to the appointment of a joint committee of both 
houses, which was to be empowered to deliberate on the im- 
provement of the Authorized Version, and to publish the re- 
sults of their inquiry. But even this proposal, moderate as 
it was, failed to secure general assent even on the part of 
those whose knowledge of sacred criticism and exegesis might 
have been supposed likely to predispose them to a favorable 
consideration of the movement. Though the subject had 
been abundantly discussed in the leading periodical literature 
of the dayj and could in no way be considered as new either 

" To examine the marginal readings which appear to have been introduced 
into some editions since the year 1611. 

" To point out such words and phrases as have either changed their mean- 
ing or become obsolete in the lapse of time ; and 

" To report from time to time the progress of their work, and the amend- 
ments which they may be prepared to recommend." See Journal of Convo- 
cation for 1856, vol. ii., p. 92. 

The subject of the marginal readings referred to in the fourth clause was 
noticed, but very briefly, three years later in the Upper House. See Chron- 
icle of Convocation for 1859, p. 251 seq. 

* On July 22, 1856, Mr. Heywood moved an address praying the crown to 
issue a royal commission (1) to consider amendments that had been proposed 
in our present version ; (2) to receive suggestions from those willing to offer 
them ; (3) to point out errors and obsolete words, and to report accordingly. 
The motion was opposed by Sir George Grey and withdrawn. See Hansard's 
Debates (3d Series), vol. cxliii., p. 122. 

f The amended proposal was as follows : 

' ' To request the Upper House to take into consideration the appointment 
of a joint committee of both houses to deliberate upon the best means of bring- 
ing under review the suggestions made during the two centuries and a half 
for the still further improvement of the Authorized Version of the Holy Scrip- 
ture, and of publishing the results of the inquiry." See Journal of Convoca- 
tion for 1 856, vol. ii. , p. 362. 

t Of the many articles that appeared at the period referred to, or shortly 
before it, we may specify those which deserved, and received, considerable at- 
tention, and certainly produced some effect at the time, viz., Edinburg Re- 



INTMOD UCTION. x 5 

to the Church or the country, still it was more than the con- 
servatism of the House was then able to accept. An amend- 
ment was placed on the notice-board by Canon Wordsworth,* 
which still further limited the proposal by the provision that 
alterations that might be recommended were not to appear 
in the text, but only in the margin. • The coup de grace was 
given by Archdeacon Denison, who added a further amend- 
ment to the effect that it was not desirable to give any en- 
couragement to any alterations whatever, whether in the text 
or in the margin. f The subject then appears to have dropped 
through. 

When we contrast this treatment of the question with that 
which it has lately received, we can not help feeling surprised 
at the striking change of sentiment. On the present occa- 
sion not only has the proposal of revision been favorably en- 
tertained by the Southern Convocation, but even reintro- 
duced into that conservative body, and, when thus reintro- 
duced, warmly welcomed ; nay, more, the original proposal 
of the Bishop of Winchester was at once amplified. J Our 

view for October, 1855, vol. cii., p. 419 seq. ; Christian Remembrancer for 
Dec, 1856, vol.xxxii., p. 451 seq. ; Westminster Review for Jan., 1857, vol. 
xi., p. 134. In the interval between that period and the present time the ar- 
ticles have been very few ; we may, however, specify Edinburg Review for 
Jan., 1865, p. 104 seq., in which the subject is discussed in an easy and read- 
able article, apparently by a writer of known reputation. The leading treat- 
ises that appeared about the time referred to will be found noticed in an ex- 
cellent article by Professor Plumptre in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 
iii.,p.l680. 

* The amendment was as follows : 

'•' That as to the question which has been brought under the notice of this 
House concerning the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures, it is not 
desirable to countenance any efforts to make changes in the text of the same, 
but that any alterations or additions which it may be deemed expedient by 
competent authority to be adopted, should be confined to the margin, and not 
be introduced into the text." See Journal of Convocation, vol. ii., p. 363. 

t The exact terms of this concluding amendment were : 

" That it is not expedient that this House give any encouragement to any 
alteration or modification of the Authorized Version, whether by way of in- 
sertion in the text, marginal note, or otherwise. " See Journal of Convoca- 
tion, vol. ii. , p. 363. 

X The original proposal of the Bishop of Winchester, as seconded by the 



1 6 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

resolution, as first brought before the House, was limited to 
the New Testament. It was immediately extended to the 
Old Testament with an amount of assent that could never 
have been expected, and never could have been given if the 
real necessity for revision had not been very sensibly felt by 
all present. It may indeed be doubted whether this enlarge- 
ment of the proposal was in itself wholly desirable. It may 
be very reasonably urged that it would have seemed at first 
sight more prudent to commence with a portion of the Holy 
Scripture, with the criticism and interpretation of which we 
are certainly more familiar than with that of the remaining 
part.* Be this, however, as it may, the general feeling of the 
Southern Convocation has been very clearly expressed, and 
that, too, in a manner and with a promptitude that could 
hardly have been expected, except by those who closely 
watch the movements of public opinion. Such a fact is very 
significant, and seems certainly to point to the conclusion 
that there is in the minds of those fully qualified to form an 
opinion, and not likely to favor innovations, a growing con- 
viction that the time has at length arrived, and that meas- 
ures ere long must be taken for such a revision as will bring 
our venerable version more closely into harmony with the in- 
spired OriginaLf 

The general aspects of the former discussion of the subject, 
Former discus- thirteen years a°ro, seem also to point in the 

sions of the sub- ,. . V™ ^ n . , , 

ject. same direction. The efforts of revision at that 

Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, only extended to the New Testament, but 
was at once extended to the Old Testament by the Bishop of Llandaff and 
others. See Guardian for Feb. 16, p. 193 seq. The extension was agreed to 
unanimously. 

* There is, we are afraid, only too much truth in the remark of Professor 
Plumptre, that relatively Hebrew was more studied in the early part of the 
17th century than it is now. See Smith's Diet, of the Bible, vol. iii. , p. 1682. 

f Some very sensible remarks on the subject of the revision will be found 
in the Quarterly Review for April, 1870, vol. exxviii., p. 129 seq. The arti- 
cle, which is of considerable interest, did not appear till the text of the great- 
er part of the present volume had been written. Any similarities of opinion 
or sentiment may therefore be considered as due to the independent though 
coincident convictions of two separate writers. 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

time, as several of us who then took part in the work prob- 
ably well remember, were almost confessedly preparatory and 
tentative. It was very generally felt at the time that the 
question was not ripe for solution, and that, though it was 
right and proper to do our best in advancing the cause of re- 
vision, yet that time must elapse before the work could be 
formally and authoritatively undertaken. Even those who 
entered with some ardor into the movement, and were at 
first unwilling to believe that it would ever cease till a re- 
vised version was in the hands of every earnest Englishman, 
soon showed a consciousness that there must be a time for 
maturation, and that first impulses must be content simply 
to prepare the way, and even by failure to demonstrate how 
and under what limitations the work itself was finally to be 
accomplished.* We all saw, more or less clearly, that the 
movement in which we were then engaged would, by the na- 
ture of the case, become suspended, that there would be a 
pause, a time for reconsideration of the work actually done, 
and then, after this pause, that the movement would recom- 
mence, and go on uninterruptedly to the end. This is com- 
monly the history of all great undertakings, and will, in all 
probability, be the history of the future revision of the Au- 
thorized Version. 

A very little consideration will show that such a forecast 
was natural and reasonable. The movement at that time 
was essentially a scholars' movement. The works of Dean 
Alford, Archbishop Trench, and others, had awakened a vivid 

* It may be noticed that even after the favorable reception of the Eevised 
Version of the Gospel of St. John, the five clergymen who took part in it still 
speak of their work as fortunate if it has " succeeded in striking the key-note 
upon which any authoritative Eevision of the English Bible, hereafter to be 
made, is to be based." Pref. to Revised Version of the Epistle to the Romans, 
p. iv. The impression on our minds was that we were doing work for the 
future, not for the then present time. This feeling had a very good effect 
upon us. We did our work slowly, and without any reference to current ex- 
pectations, or any desire to catch passing opportunities. When the interest 
in the subject died out, which it did a few years ago, we considered it a sign 
that for a season, at any rate, our work was done. 



18 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

interest in the interpretation of the New Testament, but it 
had not yet extended far beyond the circle of professed schol- 
ars. Within the circle there was soon shown a strong and 
natural desire to give a useful turn to the newly acquired 
knowledge, and to put at the disposal of the general reader 
the results of recent exegetical experience; and such general 
aid was commonly very thankfully received. But there was 
never much sympathy with these efforts whenever they took 
the particular form of revisions of the Authorized Version. 
Churchmen at that time were very tolerant of critical and 
grammatical comments, and even of corrections of the En- 
glish Bible as long as they were confined to the notes or the 
margin ; but whenever they took their place in the text there 
were but few general readers who then viewed them with 
any great amount of favor. And they were right. The ver- 
sions and specimens of versions that appeared at the time we 
are alluding to, and subsequently, were sufficiently accurate 
and precise, but they wanted tone and rhythm. They were 
translations through which the original Greek often showed 
itself far too distinctly ; they were not idiomatic versions ; 
they were suited, and even in some cases specially designed, 
for the closet ;* but with general readers they never were 
and never could have been popular. 

The best of these revised versions was one that received 
The Five cier- at tne ^ me tne valuable approval of Archbish- 
gymen revision. op Trench,t and of the distinguished American 

* Reference may, perhaps not improperly, be made to the writer's Pref. to 
Commentary to the Pastoral Epp., p. xiii. seq., the words of which have been 
quoted from time to time. They were written about the period now alluded 
to, and show, it is believed, fairly, what the general mind of scholars was 
at that time. Of the small bands of scholars there referred to, one at the 
time was actually working, to the labors of which reference is made in the 
text. 

t The friendly remarks of Archbishop Trench will be found in the first 
chapter of his useful work On the Authorized Version of the New Testament, 
and are as follows : " It is an eminent merit in the Revision of the Authorized 
Version by Five Clergymen that they have not merely urged by pre- 
cept, but shown by proof, that it is possible to revise our version, and at the 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

writer, Mr. Marsh,* and which even now has not quite passed 
out of sight. As it was produced on principles which appear 
to be trustworthy, and as it serves to indicate the path that 
must be followed by any revisers who would construct a pop- 
ular version, we may pause briefly to notice its leading char- 
acteristics. It consisted of a revision of the Authorized Ver- 
sion of St. John's Gospel, the Epistle to the Romans, and the 
two Epistles to the Corinthians, by Five Clergymen, and of 
the Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Co- 
lossians, by Four Clergymen ; in all, four separate volumes, 
to each of which a few pages of preface are prefixed, contain- 
ing a statement of the principles mainly followed, and an 
enumeration of passages in which special difficulties had been 
met with, and rules of revision more than usually tested. Of 
the five revisers, two at the outset of the work were strongly 
in favor of an authoritative revision of the whole Testament, 
but ere the work came to its conclusion (it extended over 
more than two years), all, I believe, had come honestly and 
impartially to these two conclusions : First, that an authori- 
tative revision could not wisely be attempted at that time ; 
secondly, that if it afterward were undertaken, it must be on 
the principles which they themselves had worked out and 

same time to preserve unimpaired the character of the English in which it is 
composed. Nor is it only on this account that we may accept this work as 
by far the most hopeful contribution which we have yet had to the solution 
of a great and difficult problem, but also as showing that where reverent hands 
touch that building, which some would have wholly pulled down, that it might 
be wholly built up again, these find only the need of here and there replacing 
a stone which had been incautiously built in the wall, or which, trustworthy 
material once, has now yielded to the lapse and injury of time, while they 
leave the building itself, in its main features and frame-work, untouched" (p. 
25, ed. 1). These words, from one who is so well qualified to speak both on 
the English and on the scholarly questions connected with the subject, may 
perhaps be considered to justify the reference in the text to the experiences 
derived during the progress of the work alluded to. 

* The author referred to, although deprecating a new translation, and even 
a revision, of the Authorized Version, speaks of the work of the Eive Clergy- 
men as "by far the most judicious modern recension known to him." See 
his first Series of Lectures on the English Language, No. xxviii., p. 633. 



20 ELLIGOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

followed, and which more than two years of hard united work 
had proved to be trustworthy. 

These principles will be occasionally alluded to in detail 
Principles of in the following pages. For the present it may 
this revision. ^ e en0U gh ^ notice that they were, first, a lim- 
itation of the vocabulary of translation to that of the Author- 
ized Version of both Testaments ;* secondly, a careful atten- 
tion, and, as far as possible, adherence to the principles stated 
and followed by the revisers of 1611 ; thirdly, extreme watch- 
fulness in reference to the two weaker portions of the Au- 
thorized Version, the translation of the particles and of the 
tenses ;f fourthly, and combined with this, a constant recog- 
nition in such cases of the frequently modifying power of the 
context, and of the fact that the tenses, especially the past 
tenses, in Greek and English, are not co-extensive ; fifthly, a 
sensitiveness to the noble rhythm and cadence of the Author- 
ized Version ; and, lastly, a continual remembrance that a 
truly popular translation must always stand the test of being 
heard as icell as read, and must commend itself not only to 
the cultivated scholar, but to the simple hearer. 

Such were the principles of this particular revision,]; and 

* The Five Revisers distinctly state that they kept the earlier English ver- 
sions, from Wicliffe downward, before them, and " constantly rejected words 
which presented themselves as the most exact equivalents to the words of the 
Greek because they wanted the Biblical garb and sound which we were anx- 
ious to preserve." See Preface to Revised Version of St. John, p. viii. 

f The principles adopted in the translation of some of the particles are 
stated in the Preface above referred to (see p. x.). In respect of the tenses, 
it is stated that the " exact accuracy of literal rendering which rigid scholar- 
ship might seem to require" is not always maintained (p. xi.). It may be 
now said, however, that this accuracy was maintained even too far, especially 
in the case of the aorist and perfect. Such, at least, is the judgment of Marsh, 
who seems inclined to draw the inference from it that the tenses "are com- 
ing to have in England a force which they have not now in America." See 
Lectures on the English Language, No. xxviii., p. 633. Several changes, how- 
ever, were made in the second edition. 

% A full account will be found in the Preface to the Revised Translation of 
St. John. It is not violating confidence to say that it was principally the 
composition of the agreeable pen of the present Bishop of Salisbury, and that 
it will be found to contain a good account of the principles followed, and cer- 
tainly deserves perusal. 



INTRODUCTION. 



21 



such, it may be said, must be the principles of any revision 
that would aspire to be popular and successful. But let it 
not be supposed that these principles were all recognized at 
once, and all systematically acted on from the first. They 
were not thought out, but felt out and worked out. They 
resulted from faithful individual labor combined with fre- 
quent conference and united efforts round a common table ; 
they resulted also from the great teaching of experience, and 
from the continual testing, and, it may be added, the frequent 
breaking down of rigorous canons of translation on which it 
might have seemed a priori that reliance could be placed. 
There are, indeed, few canons in reference to revision of more 
practical importance than those which are embodied in the 
foregoing sentence, viz;, (1.) That there must be frequent con- 
ference and the combined action of several minds, and (2.) 
That experience must be relied on as the only ultimately suc- 
cessful teacher in the difficult work. Few are willing at first 
to accept these canons, but all scholars of candid minds and 
of proper humility will be found in the sequel to acknowledge 
their validity. As they are of real importance, let us devote 
to each of them a few sentences of comment and elucidation. 
In reference to the first of these canons, we may observe 
1st Canon: Sev- that it serves to remind us how it is that so 
essary. very few revisions of the Authorized Version 

have been even endurable, when contrasted with that which 
they were designed to amend. Nearly all our revised ver- 
sions have been produced by individual scholars, and, faith- 
ful to their origin, they have clearly enough disclosed the 
bias and individuality of the single mind and the single 
reviser. They have been one-sided and not many-sided. 
They have commonly been, if accurate, too inflexible ; if free, 
too loose and paraphrastic. The happy elasticity of diction, 
and the thoroughly idiomatic tone of our English version — 
that which, in fact, so commends it to the heart as well as 
the head of the earnest reader, is just that which will be 
found wanting in all recent revisions. And it would be un- 



22 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

reasonable to expect that it could be otherwise. The elas- 
ticity to which we have alluded is due in a great measure to 
the united operation of several minds, and to the continued 
modifications which the aspects of a passage as presented to 
the different minds of different revisers would be certain to 
introduce. The individual adheres, often far too pertina- 
ciously in detail, to his principles of translation. His very 
precision often makes him very insufficiently sensitive to the 
exegetical current of the passage, and hence often to that 
modification which the context constantly tends to introduce 
in the translation, especially of tenses and particles. The 
requisite correction is supplied by another mind estimating 
differently the general current of the passage, and the ulti- 
mately chosen translation often accurately enough indicates, 
not so much the result of compromise, as the final decision of 
two or more minds after having so acted and reacted upon 
each other that a common translation could be agreed upon. 
For instance, an individual translator or reviser might feel 
it always, so to speak, such a grammatical duty to mark in 
translation the difference (in the same author) between two 
particles — let us say 6X\a and Si, that his very desire to ad- 
here scrupulously to his rule might impede his perception of 
some shade of meauing in the passage that tended to modify 
the rule. Suppose, to carry on this particular instance, that 
he resolved that he would give aXXa in translation its inher- 
ently stronger adversative force of " howbeit" or " notwith- 
standing," and so mark its distinction from the "but" or 
"yet" of the lighter opposition of the de, and suppose further 
that he was a thoroughly good scholar, and perfectly familiar 
with the fact that if a definitely expressed negative preceded 
the aXXa in the contrasted clause, then his rule would have 
to undergo modification.* Suppose all this — and it will not 

* For some remarks on this principle, which is, in fact, strictly analogous 
to the nicht — sondern of the German, see Donaldson, New Cratylus, § 201, 
p. 376. In some passages of the New Testament this principle is of very 
great importance. For example, in the momentous passage, Phil. ii. , 6, ov% 
apirayfibv rjyrjvctTO to elvai 'iaa 9e£, aXka kavrbv iKtvucev, much in regard of 



INTRODUCTION. 



23 



be difficult to imagine that there might be many a passage 
in which there might be found a latent negative, and so a 
modifying element in the context, which our imaginary accu- 
rate scholar with his mind on his rule might not be sensitive 
enough to perceive. Put other minds in contact with his ; 
the result might easily be that discussion would bring out 
the true logical and exegetical aspects of the passage, that 
the latent negative in the preceding clause would be proper- 
ly recognized, and the translation of the aXXa modified ac- 
cordingly. Such examples of the importance of having sev- 
eral minds in combination in such a delicate work as that of 
revising our idiomatic Authorized Version could be multi- 
plied indefinitely. 

The second canon, that experience will prove the best 
2d Canon: Ex- teacher in such a work as revision, though not 

perience the . . . 

best guide. quite so obvious as the canon which we have 
just illustrated, will in practice be found quite as certainly 
true. It might be thought that competent translators and 
revisers might agree on their principles beforehand, and go 
regularly forward without much risk of lapsing from uni- 
formity, or of so changing a standard that it would be con- 
tinually necessary to go over the back-work with the light 
of present knowledge and observation. It certainly might 
be thought so, but experience will always be found to re- 
verse the expectation. General rules of course there must 
be, but in the application of them the tentative element must 
greatly predominate. The individual will find it so, and still 
more the combined body. In fact, this is the sort of set-off 
against the advantage of the co-operation of several minds 
specified above — the tendency of an association to change 

translation turns upon the due recognition of the fact that we have two strict- 
ly contrasted clauses, as indicated by parity of tenses (r}yr]<ja.To — iKkvuotv) 
and by the presence of this ovk — aXka. The translation, then, of the Author- 
ized Version, enhanced as it is by the punctuation ("thought it not robbery 
to be equal with God ; but made himself of no reputation") as failing to pre- 
serve and bring out this contrast of clauses, may fairly be considered as open 
to question. See Commentary in he. 



24 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

gradually a standard being always much more pronounced 
than that of the individual. 

A moment's consideration will show the truth of this re- 
mark, at any rate in such a special work as that of revision. 
What, for instance, is the very condition of revision ? Why, 
that errors, and perhaps also inaccuracies and archaisms 
should be removed. Good ; but, then, to take even the most 
favorable case, the removal of simple and clear errors, is it 
not perfectly certain that even if the definition of what was 
to be considered an error was tolerably agreed on at first, it 
would be considerably modified as the work went on, so that, 
if there was to be any thing like a uniform principle in the 
work, constant retrospect and reconsideration would be nec- 
essary? We venture very confidently to maintain that if 
half a dozen scholars sat down to revise the present version 
of one of the Gospels, and agreed beforehand, after having 
settled the distinction between errors and inaccuracies, only 
to touch the former and not the latter, it would be found, be- 
fore they had gone half through their work, that they had 
taken in the whole fringe of cases that lies between errors 
and inaccuracies, and had even gone far into the domain of 
the latter. In revision, as in many other things, there is a 
continually accelerative and intensifying tendency which in- 
creased habitude in the work never fails to develop, but 
which certainly must be closely watched and constantly cor- 
rected. The best, and, indeed, the only way to keep this 
tendency under is to proceed tentatively, to feel out princi- 
ples of revision rather than to attempt definitely to lay them 
down beforehand, and then, from time to time, as the princi- 
ples are felt out, to go back over the work already done. It 
is only thus, it is only by this tentative and retrospective 
mode of proceeding, this continual reference to experience, 
that the subtle and delicate process of revision can be suc- 
cessfully carried out. 

We gave an illustration of the first canon ; we may per- 
haps, not unsuitably, give one of the second. Suppose it 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

was agreed beforehand that great care should be given, to 
illustration of distinguish, where possible, between the tenses — 
the canon. sa ^ f or exam pi G) between the aorist and the per- 
fect. Now it may be confidently asserted that nothing but 
experience will adequately prescribe in cases of this kind 
when the " have" should be introduced in the translation of 
the aorist and when the simple past tense should be adopted. 
Whatever our rules might have been beforehand, they would 
break down in such a chapter, for example, as John xvii., 
and they would be sorely tested in those many cases in 
which, in the original Greek, particles of present time are 
found in the same clauses, and in combination with aorists.* 
And what is true of the aorist is almost equally true of the 
perfect. We might, for instance, begin our work by the gen- 
eral agreement that, whatever might be the case of the aorist, 
we would, at any rate, press the translation of the perfect, 
and recognize its force, and yet, when we came to such a pas- 
sage as 1 John i., 1, we should not be perfectly clear that the 
lines of demarkation between aorist and perfect were always 
very rigidly drawn. We should have in the sequel to fall 
back on experience. 

But to return to the present aspects of this question. 

From what has been said, it does not seem unreasonable to 

Growth of in- think that there has been during the last twelve 

subject. years a gradual ripening of general interest in 

the subject of revision. We have all had time to think well 

over the former movement, to come to unbiased opinions 

* For example, Phil, iii., 12, rtfr) t\af3ov, and again ch. iv., 10, rjdr] nore 
avtO&Xers, or in the case of vvv, Eph. iii., 5, wg vvv ccntKakixpBr} — in all which 
cases it would be simply impossible to leave out the auxiliary in English and 
to adopt a simple aoristic translation. The actual fact is, that there is not a 
strict parity between the English past tense and the Greek aorist : the former 
points back clearly to past time and commonly taken per se; remands the 
thought back to an epoch distinctly separated from present time ; the Greek 
aorist specifies posteriority to some fixed point of time, but is simply silent as 
to the fact whether the action has or has not any reference to present time. 
See esp. Donaldson, New Cratylus, § 372 seq., and the useful treatise on the 
force of this tense by Fritz, De Aoristi Vi, p. 17. 

Gg 



26 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

upon the principles which seem likely to prove most trust- 
worthy in the actual prosecution of the work, and — what is 
especially important — to arrive at some conclusions as to the 
limits within which revision should be confined. We are also, 
in several respects, better prepared for the work. Though it 
must be conceded that New-Testament interpretation has 
not, at any rate in the Church of England, made much prog- 
ress during the last ten years ; though in some of the many 
schools of thought within the Church at the present time 
there is a retrograde movement, and a relapse to the easy la- 
bors of mystical commentaries and of loose exegesis; though 
our religious newspapers often give us evidence, in the letters 
of correspondents, that there is not only great, but, what is 
worse, confident ignorance on critical or grammatical ques- 
tions ; though much valuable time has been wasted on ritu- 
alistic controversy instead of being devoted to serene schol- 
arship ; though the study of the ancient versions has been al- 
most absolutely stopped for the last twelve or fourteen years, 
still, in spite of all these discouraging facts, the assertion may 
be fully sustained that we are better prepared for the work 
than we were at the close of the last movement. 

Two or three reasons may be alleged for such an opinion. 

Reasons for ^ n tne ^ rst place, the majority of those who are 

this opinion. mogt . j ike]y t<) be ca U e( J upon tQ ta k e part ' m 

any future revision will have matured in judgment, and have 
had time to reconsider the principles on which the former at- 
tempts had been based, in some of which they themselves 
may have taken part. Such scholars, who for the most part 
belonged to a somewhat sharply defined critical and exegeti- 
cal school, will now find themselves recruited by some mem- 
bers of the more distinctly historical school of commentators 
and interpreters which has appeared during the last ten years. 
The keen, and perhaps, for a popular revision, unduly rigor- 
ous scholarship of those who were connected with the first 
movement will be now found beneficially influenced both by 
the wider knowledge and experience time will have brought 



INTRODUCTION. 



27 



with it, and by the flexibility of the later systems of inter- 
pretations which have appeared either at home or in Ger- 
many. The delay will not have been unprofitable. 

In the second place, some worthy representatives of sound 
increase of Biblical scholarship will be now found among 
Nonconformists, the Nonconformists. The half-generation that 
has now elapsed since revision was last under consideration 
has witnessed the gradual rise and progress of sacred exe- 
gesis in all the higher training colleges of Wesleyans, Bap- 
tists, Independents, and other communities. Scotland also, 
in the person of Professor Eadie, Dr. Brown, and others, has 
shown that Presbyterians have not been left behind in the 
general advance.* And this is a matter of the utmost im- 
portance. It would not be hopeful to undertake such a truly 
national work as the revision of the English Bible, that Book 
of Life which is alike dear and common to us all, without the 
presence and co-operation of the most learned of our brethren 
of nonconformity.! This was properly felt and expressed by 
most of the speakers in the Upper House of the Convocation 
of Canterbury, and, we believe, would be frankly respond- 
ed to by those we have alluded to. General questions may 
often keep us apart ; uncharitable and embittered politicians 

* It is pleasant to observe the steady progress that has been silently made 
in Biblical learning during the last twenty years by Nonconformists. The 
honored name of Tregelles — one who has given the whole energies of a life 
(alas! now seriously impaired) to sacred criticism — will at once supply an 
example of great and successful labors outside of the communion of the 
Church of England. We may also, perhaps, be permitted to specify the 
names of Dr. Gotch, of Bristol ; of Dr. Angus, of the College in Eegent's 
Park ; and of the modest and singularly able translator of Winer's Greek 
Grammar, Professor Moulton, of Richmond — all men whose learning would 
entitle them to a place at any Board of Revision, and who would be wel- 
comed there by all Biblical scholars of the Church of England. 

t In his excellent treatise on Revision Archbishop Trench alludes to this 
subject. He does not, however, seem to contemplate the presence of Non- 
conformists at the actual revising Board, or as sitting there on equal terms 
with others ; and he also somewhat summarily disposes of the claims of 
Baptists. See Revision of Auth. Version, ch. xi., p. 138. In the twelve 
years, however, that have elapsed since the work was written, my valued 
friend may very likely have modified his opinion. We all live and learn. 



28 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

may continue, as we have seen not long since, their discred- 
itable efforts to sow dissension and animosities, but in the 
calm region of Biblical learning such pitiful efforts will nev- 
er be permitted to prevail. The men that may hereafter sit 
round the council-table of revision will be proof against all 
such uncharitableness ;* they will be bound by the holy bond 
of reverence for the same Book, and adoration for the same 
Lord. Those whom God may hereafter vouchsafe to join to- 
gether in a holy work, sectarian bitterness will never be able 
to put asunder. 

Thirdly, the additions that by the providence of God have 
increase in our been made to the critical material for the textu- 
al, al revision of the Authorized Version may well, 
on the one hand, make us thankful that this delay has taken 
place, and yet, on the other hand, make us desirous to show 
our thankfulness by now preparing to use what has been 
thus unexpectedly vouchsafed. Every earnest man must re- 
gard it as something more than accident that a manuscript 
such as the Sinaitic Manuscript, so venerable and so perfect, 
should have been discovered just at a time when such a wit- 
ness was, in many important passages, so especially needed. 
Of an antiquity inferior only to the great Vatican Manuscript, 
in perfect preservation, and without a missing page, this ven- 
erable document is now in the hands of us all.f Surely it 

* The following sentences from The Freeman for February 18 seem to jus- 
tify this expectation. The writer justly observes that no existing version 
"could be endured in the place of the fine old English of our translators — we 
must have a restoration, not a rebuilding on a modern plan." He then adds : 
1 'It must also be a catholic translation. Learned men of all evangelical 
churches must be invited to co-operate, and the work fully and freely can- 
vassed before it is fully accepted." The next sentence is specially worthy 
of attention : ' ' One thing we had almost forgotten to remark — the work 
must be done by the churches, not by the government." See also, as to Convo- 
cation, The Times for May 6. 

t The general reader will find some useful remarks on this manuscript, and 
especially on its relation to the venerable Codex Vaticanus, in the Christian 
Remembrancer for October, 1867, vol. liv. , p. 41 4 seq. There is also a special 
article on the imperial edition of this manuscript in the same periodical for 
April, 1863, vol. xlv., p. 374. For more exact and special information, the 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

asks for and requires from us our reverent consideration and 
use. Let it also not be forgotten that we have now at last 
trustworthy reprints of the Vatican Manuscript above al- 
luded to ;* and further, that individual scholars, through the 
labors of Mr. Hansellf and the enterprise of the Oxford Uni- 
versity Press, can now themselves refer to, and, what is very 
important in finally forming a critical judgment, read con- 
nectedly ', all the leading manuscripts of the different portions 
of the New Testament. With such aids now ready to our 
hand, we may be thankful indeed to have been delayed a few 
years, but we can also hardly resist the feeling that the bom- 
is fast approaching when a practical and national use should 
be made of these great aids toward arriving at the ipsissi- 
ma verba of apostles and evangelists, and of bringing to the 
ears of all who speak our language the truest accents of 
men who wrote and spoke as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost. 

It may be conceded that there is one department of Bibli- 
studyof ver- cal scholarship in which we are still very deficient, 

sions greatly . . 

neglected. and one of such real importance that we might 
well plead for longer delay if there seemed any reasonable 
prospect of the deficiency being made up by scholars of the 
present time. "We are alluding to the study of the ancient 
versions of the New Testament. If there seemed any grounds 
for thinking that these ancient witnesses would be more sys- 
tematically consulted for exegetical as well as critical pur- 
poses, if there was any probability of translations being made 
in Latin, German, or English, of the Coptic, Armenian, or Pell 

reader must be referred to the account of this MS. by Tregelles, and the elab- 
orate Prolegomena of Tischendorf. 

* A good article on this MS. , and on the relation to it and to the Codex 
Bezae of the Curetonian Syriac Version of part of the Gospels, will be found 
in the Christian Remembrancer for June, 1859, vol. xxxvii., p. 467. 

t The title of this useful and valuable work is Nov. Testam. Graice, Anti- 
quissimorum Codicum, ed. E. H. Hansell, Oxon., 1865. It does not contain 
the Codex Sinaiticus, having unfortunately been commenced before that man- 
uscript was accessible. It contains, however, in the third volume, a very care- 
ful collation, and some useful critical notes. 



30 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Piatt's Ethiopia Version, it would be wise to wait patiently 
till these had come into the hands of general scholars, and 
could be freely used, as they ought to be used, in such a work 
as the revision of our own version. But it is perfectly clear 
that if we waited for such aids, important as they confessed- 
ly are, we should wait in vain. There is no disposition in 
our own quick-moving times to engage in the labor improbus 
that such studies imply ; there is no willingness on the part 
of younger scholars to devote themselves to what at first 
sight might be deemed only subsidiary and subordinate ; and 
yet all experience shows that there is no more really valua- 
ble aid in the difficult work of deciding between conflicting 
interpretations than is supplied to us by the six or seven ear- 
lier versions.* In them we commonly have, not so much the 
opinion of the individual translation, as the prevailing voice 
of the ancient Church and people for the use of which the 
version was originally committed to writing. We have, per- 
haps, the combined judgment of many minds, and sometimes, 
in the case of the earliest versions, may have traditional in- 
terpretations which date almost from apostolic times. It is, 
at any rate, no stretch of imagination to suppose that por- 
tions of the Peshito might have been in the hands of St. John, 
or that the Old Latin represented the current views of the 
Roman Christians of the second century. Of these ancient 
witnesses, the two already named, the Gothic and the Poly- 
glot Ethiopic Version (in the fairly accurate Latin translation 
of Bode) are tolerably available, but the best edition of the 
Coptic Version, the Ethiopic of Pell Piatt, and the Armenian, 
are, we believe, up to the present time, inaccessible except to 
the student of these unfamiliar languages. 

But to wait for accurate collations of these versions for 

* The reader who may need a summary account of these ancient versions 
will find it in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Art. ' ' Versions. " He may, 
perhaps, also be referred to the Preface to my Commentary on the Pastoral 
Epistles, and also on the Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians, for some 
comments from one who has attempted, as far as he was able, himself to use 
them. 



INTRODUCTION. 



31 



exegetical purposes is to wait in vain. There is no greater 
likelihood now than there was half a generation ago that any 
further advance will be made in them than has been already 
made — nay, to begin the work of revision may prove the 
only hopeful way of directing attention to this portion of the 
subject. We have among us a few Coptic, Ethiopic, and Ar- 
menian scholars, and from them we may obtain aid when it 
becomes plain that it is really wanted. The demand may 
create the supply. 

If this be so, if there seems really good ground for think- 
Division of m o tnat tne time has at last come for, at any 
the subject. ratGj the commencement of the work, and that 
longer delay is not likely to place us in any better position 
than what we now occupy, the present is clearly the time for 
some careful preliminary consideration, both in reference to 
the nature of the work and to the best mode of attempting 
it. Some little experience has been already acquired, and of 
this it seems prudent to make some use, if only by way of 
preparation and suggestion. Let us, then, deal in a simple 
and popular way with the general subject, and apply our at- 
tention to those leading questions which seem naturally to 
present themselves at this early stage of the work. 

These questions would seem to come before us for consid- 
eration in the following order and connection : Firsts what is 
the critical state of the text of that portion of the Scriptures 
— the New Testament — that we are more particularly con- 
sidering in these pages ? Secondly, what is the general char- 
acter of the Authorized Version of the New Testament, and 
what are the principles on which it was constructed ? Third- 
ly, what are the limits to which, with due regard to these 
principles, revision should probably be confined ? Fourthly, 
what is the probable amount of the corrections that would 
thus be introduced — a question of great practical importance, 
and on the answer to which much will be found hereafter to 
depend ? Fifthly, what objections of real weight have been 
urged against revision ? and, Lastly, if a revision is to be at- 



32 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

tempted, in what way, and under what authority, would it 
seem best for us to proceed ? 

Such would seem to be the leading questions in connection 
with the subject of revision, to each one of which an answer 
shall be. returned in the following pages. Our first consider- 
ations shall be on the text which, as far as it can be ascer- 
tained, was used by the scholars and divines who were en- 
gaged in the work of the last revision. 



CRITICAL VALUE OF TEXT OF THE AJJTH. VERSION. '33 



CHAPTER H. 

THE CEITICAL VALUE OF THE TEXT OF THE ATJTHOEIZED 
VEESION. 

In discussing the interesting and practical question of the 
critical value of the text which was used by the revisers of 
1611, we are naturally led into some cognate questions which 
it may be convenient to discuss in the present chapter. 
These shall now be stated, and shall receive such answers as 
may be serviceable to the general reader. In no part of the 
subject is technicality necessarily more prominent, but it 
shall be avoided as far as is consistent with accuracy of treat- 
ment. Attention shall be more directed to actual facts and 
results than to the details on which they depend. 

The main questions which have now to be considered in 
Main questions connection with the text of the Authorized Ver- 

to be consider- 
ed, sion are, it would seem, four in number. First, 

it will be clearly necessary to ascertain what the Greek text 
actually was which was used by the revisers. Was it a text 
they constructed for themselves, or was it the text of any 
current edition, and if so, did they always adhere to it? 
Secondly, it will be necessary to take some account of the 
critical material which we now have, and of which the re- 
visers had no knowledge. This will naturally lead us, in the 
third place, to consider the really practical question, How 
best to use this material in any future revision, whether to 
construct a critical text first, or to use preferentially, though 
not exclusively, some current text, or simply to proceed on- 
ward with the work of revision, whether of text or transla- 
tion, making the current Textus Receptus the standard, and 
departing from it only when critical or grammatical consid-. 
erations show that it is clearly necessary — in fact, solvere am- 



34 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

bulanclo. Lastly, it will perhaps be convenient to endeavor 
to arrive at some estimate of the amount and the importance 
of the changes that critical considerations alone may be like- 
ly to introduce into the current text, there being on this sub- 
ject much exaggeration on both sides. We may now pro- 
ceed to consider these questions more in detail, 

In reference to the first question — What the Greek text 
The text used was which the revisers of 1611 actually had be- 
by the revisers. f ore them wnen they were engaged in their work 
— the answer can easily be made from inspection of the ver- 
sion. The revisers used two current editions, chiefly, as it 
would seem, Beza's fourth edition of the Greek Text, pub- 
lished in 1589, and the fourth edition of Stephens — the first 
of the editions of Stephens that was divided into verses — 
which was published in 1551. As both these editions were 
scarcely any thing more than reprints of the editions that 
respectively preceded, and as both these preceding editions 
had acquired considerable celebrity, we shall be quite cor- 
rect in saying that the text of the Authorized Version is that 
of the third edition of Beza's Greek Testament of 1582 [Beza 
3], and of Stephens's Greek Testament of 1550 [Stephens 3]. 
On a close examination of the comparatively few passages in 
which Beza 3 differs from Stephens 3, it would appear that 
in some 60 places (notes included) the Authorized Version 
agrees with Beza 3 against Stephens 3, and that in some 27 
or 28 places (1 Cor. x., 38 being apparently an error of the 
press) it agrees with the latter against the former ; and fur- 
ther, that in a very few passages, perhaps under half a dozen, 
it agrees with neither. 

But we shall have hardly answered our first question sat- 
Pedigree of isfactorily unless we shortly enter into the for- 
this text. tner q Ue stion of the pedigree and critical value 
of the Greek Text on which our own version thus depends. 
What was the history and critical value of Stephens 3 and 
Beza 3 ? Not perhaps very satisfactory in either case. The 
history, however, is as follows: Beza 3 and Stephens 3 really 



CRITICAL VALUE OF TEXT OF THE AUTH. VERSION. 35 

differ so little that we may, writing popularly, consider them 
as one edition. Both editors had a certain amount of crit- 
ical materials, the greater part of it in common, and collect- 
ed by the son of Stephens. But neither of them made any 
real use of them. Beza, as we know, had in his possession 
the celebrated manuscript that bears his name (D of the Gos- 
pels and Acts*), and the nearly equally celebrated Claromon- 
tane Manuscript (D of the Epistles), but he seems to have 
mainly used both these and all his other critical aids more 
for exegetical purposes than any thing else. The estimate 
he took of various readings was, it would seem, almost en- 
tirely a theological one. Stephens also, though he began 
well, and based the text of his first edition on MSS. in the 
Royal Library at Paris and on readings from the first print- 
ed (though not first published) text, viz., the Complutensian, 
and though he also published in his third edition a collection 
of some 2200 various readings from 15 different MSS. (one of 
which was the Codex Bezse), still in his third and most cele- 
brated edition he made the least possible use of them, and 
even lapsed back again to the text of another editor that had 
been received with favor three-and-twenty years before. He 
frequently deserts the text of his own first and second edi- 
tions to revert to that of the anterior editor. 

Who was this editor ? It need hardly be said that it was 
The editions Erasmus, and that in the fourth edition ofJEras- 
of Erasmus. mus we rea iiy have the mother-text of our own 
Authorized Version. What then, finally, is the history of this 
Erasmian text, and what its critical value ? Its history is 
short. In the year 1516, Erasmus, after not much more than 
six months' labor, published at Basle an edition of the Greek 

* This venerable manuscript has recently been published with great care 
and accuracy by Mr. Scrivener. A very interesting account of the MS. is 
prefixed. For a thoroughly good review of this important work, see Chris- 
tian Remembrancer for Dec, 1864, vol. xlviii. , p. 416 seq. All the recent crit- 
ical articles in this learned, but, we fear, now suspended Quarterly Journal, 
are especially good, and in most instances very readable. They appear to 
come mostly from the same hand. 



36 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Testament, and so got the start of the splendid Compluten- 
sian edition of Cardinal Ximenes,* the New Testament portion 
of which, though then printed, had not been published, and 
was not published till a few years afterward. Erasmus hon- 
estly says that his work was a " precipitated" one. It was 
so : he was not insensible to the value of ancient testimony, 
and, if he had allowed himself time, would probably have 
given a better text to the world than that which is connect- 
ed with his name, but the excusable though unfortunate de- 
sire to anticipate the lingering volume of the Compluten- 
sian edition marred the great work, and the evil effects of 
that six months of hurry last to this very hour. It certainly 
is somewhat sad now to know that, though the MSS. which 
Erasmus used were collectively of no great critical value, yet 
that there was one good authority among them which he never 
used, for the very reason, as he himself tells us, that its read- 
ings were so different from the others. This manuscript was 
the cursive Codex Basiliensis, marked 1 in the usual lists of 
such documents, and fully deserving its accidentally given 
priority, being classed by Tregelles (with "No. 33 and No. 69) 
as deserving a place in the noble group of ancient uncial 
witnesses which is headed by the Vatican and Sinaitic Manu- 
scripts.f 

It is vexatious also to think that, with a little effort, Eras- 
mus might have procured, through his friend Paulus Bom- 
basius, a transcript, or, at any rate, a collation of the famous 

* Perhaps few of our readers may have actually inspected the exquisite 
specimen of early typography which the noble volumes of this edition present. 
We may mention, then, that a visit to the large library in the new house of 
the Bible Society will enable them to see a very fine copy of this justly cele- 
brated edition. The beauty and clearness of the printing of the New Testa- 
ment is most striking, and the tint of the ink is of that welcome gray-black 
tone which is now commonly found so agreeable to modern eyes. 

t See the classification of Tregelles in his edition of the 4th vol. of Home, 
Introduction to the Scriptures, p. 106. Some useful remarks on this classifi- 
cation will be found in a very careful and elaborate article on Textual Criti- 
cism in the Christian Remembrancer for July, 1864, vol. xlviii., p. 57 seq. 
See also the good article in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iii., p. 506. 



CEITICAL VALUE OF TEXT OF THE AUTH. VERSION. 37 

Vatican Manuscript (B) itself. He referred, we know, to it 
in regard of the famous text in the first Epistle of St. Johu, 
and had a transcript sent to him of a portion of the fifth 
chapter. How strange it seems that we were so near a good 
text, and yet that it pleased God (for such things are doubt- 
less providentially ordered) that a sixteenth century manu- 
script of the ordinary late character of text should be the one 
chosen by Erasmus, and used by the printer (for his marks 
remain on it to this day) for the fast published edition of the 
Book of Life. Such incidents are really mysterious. To 
speculate on them is unwise, but it does still seem hard to 
resist the conviction that the unflagging industry and devo- 
tion that has been conspicuously shown, generation after 
generation, in the critical study of the text o'f the New Test- 
ament, would never have been called forth but by these very 
circumstances ; and that the knowledge that a purer text of 
the sacred Volume was attainable than that which, one hun- 
dred years afterward, was dignified by the title of the Uni- 
versally Received Text, is really that which has quickened 
scholars and critics in their honorable and life-long labors 
even to our present day. 

But to return to our short narrative. This first edition of 
Succeeding edi- Erasmus was succeeded by a second, in which 

tions of the fore- , *.**.*■%*** i ,i 

going. there were about 400 alterations, nearly three 

fourths of which were, in the judgment of Mill, decidedly im- 
provements. This edition was followed by the famous third 
edition, in which 1 John v., 1 first appeared, and owing to 
which the controversial troubles of Erasmus, already suffi- 
ciently great owing to his Latin Version, were considerably 
increased. Soon afterward the Complutensian edition of the 
Greek Testament at length appeared to the world, and Eras- 
mus was able to compare his own work with that of Stunica 
and Lebrixa, and to correct especially what most certainly 
needed correction, the text of the Revelation — the single 
manuscript which he used having here been imperfect, and, 
in the case of the concluding verses, actually so defective 



38 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

that, as we know, Erasmus had here to produce a text by 
retranslation of the Vulgate into his oicn Greek. In this 
fourth edition, which appeared in 1527, he consequently in- 
troduced changes in the text of the Revelation in about 90 
places, and corrected and removed, though not wholly, what 
he had himself supplied. In other portions of Scripture there 
were very few changes made. The third edition had differ- 
ed in 1 1 8 places from the second, but the fourth differed only 
in about 16 from the third. 

Such was the fourth edition of Erasmus, the mother-edition 
of the Textus Receptus and of our own Authorized Version. 
It was based, as we have seen, on scanty evidence and late 
manuscripts. It contains two interpolations which the edi- 
tor himself introduced on his own responsibility, viz., Acts 
viii., 37, and words in Acts ix., 5, 6. It is especially unsatis- 
factory in the Revelation. Where in any degree dependent 
on a version, it is dependent only on a very bad and even de- 
formed text of the Vulgate. Such it is; and yet, by the 
providence of God the Holy Ghost, and through the loyalty 
and reverence with which the Word of God had been trans- 
mitted, and that faithfulness which stirred in the hand and 
heart even of the writer of the meanest cursive manuscript, 
it is what it is — so far substantially in accordance with what 
now we may rightly deem to be the true text as justly to 
call forth our enduring thankfulness for this mercy and prov- 
idence of Almighty God.* 

* This general statement has been often exaggerated. It has been said 
from the days of Mill that the variations, though so very many in number, 
are wholly unimportant ; and, on the other hand, especially of late years, it 
has been implied that the changes which textual criticism would introduce 
are even more important than those which would be introduced by scholar- 
ship and exegesis. See Westcott, History of the English Bible, p. 1 70. This 
last statement is perhaps too wide. The exact state of the case would seem 
to be that there are some important passages, especially of a historical char- 
acter (i. e., Mark xvi., 9 seq. ; John v., 3, 5 ; vii., 53-viii., 11 ; Acts viii., 
37), in which the present text must be considered either incorrect or doubt- 
ful, but that there are not many in which doctrine is directly involved. A 
useful paper on the various readings of the New Testament (by the Rev. R. 



CRITICAL VALUE OF TEXT OF THE ATJTB. VERSION. 39 

But while we may justly retain this thankful remembrance 
Present afflu- in our hearts, while we may thus rightly bless 

ence of critical ^ -, n i 1 ■ * ■, - 

materials. and adore God for the heritage of his truth 
which we have in our Authorized Version, let us not forget 
that the same God who thus vouchsafed his providential care 
to the transmission of his Word has also permitted us, in the 
260 years that have passed away since that version was pub- 
lished, and especially of late years, to have acquired a very 
accurate knowledge of what were probably the very words, 
which were either traced by the hands of apostles and evan- 
gelists, or dictated by them to the faithful writer. This 
knowledge we now have; this knowledge it must be our 
bounden duty reverently and faithfully to make use of. No 
mere conservatism, no timid apprehension of unsettling a be- 
lief, already (God knoweth) so unsettled from other causes 
that textual criticism would rather act in a contrary direc- 
tion — no acquiescence in well meant but really ignorant prej- 
udice, must prevent us faithfully bringing out of the treas- 
ures vouchsafed to us every item that will aid in putting be- 
fore us in their truest form what an apostolic father has not 
scrupled to call " the true sayings of the Holy Ghost." The 
only question will be, as we indicated at the beginning of this 
chapter, What have we now in our treasures that early edi- 
tors had not ? what are the materials now at our disposal for 
bringing the text of the Authorized Version more into con- 
formity with what we believe to have been the original text ? 
Without entering, in a popular essay like the present, into 
detailed descriptions of MSS. or of the various critical mate- 
rials that have accumulated in the last two centuries and a 
half, let us, at any rate, devote two or three pages to a con- 
sideration of the sources to which now we can appeal in any 
revision of a text. 

Critical materials consist, on the one hand, of ancient un- 
cial manuscripts, cursive manuscripts, ancient versions of 

B. Girdlestone) will be found in the Christian Advocate and Review for Octo- 
ber, 1869. It has since been republished. 



40 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

the Scripture, quotations of Scripture from the best editions 
Critical mate- °f earlier fathers ; and, on the other hand, of 
nais. a n these technical facts and principles which 

the study of ancient documents has brought out, and which 

continued observation has confirmed. 

In respect of the first-named of these materials, the uncial 

Uncial manu- manuscripts, how much have we to be thankful 

scripts, and edi- 

tiousofthem. for, how much we owe to recent industry. Not 
to mention the five -and -twenty or six -and- twenty manu- 
scripts, whole or fragmentary, of secondary importance, 
whether of the Gospels or of other portions of Scripture — 
though it should be said some of these claim places all but 
the highest — let us remember that we now have two manu- 
scripts, the second of which contains the whole, and the first 
nearly the whole, of the New Testament, viz., the Vatican (B) 
and Sinaitic (a), both of as early a date as the fourth centu- 
ry, and three following them at no distant intervals, the 
nearly complete Alexandrian Manuscript (A),* the fragment- 
ary rescript at Paris bearing the name of the Codex Ephremi 
(C),f both probably of the fifth century, and for the Gospels 
and Acts only a remarkable manuscript that bears the title 
of the Codex Bezae (D), and which can not be placed later 
than the middle of the sixth century. Besides these, we 
have, for the Acts of the Apostles, the valuable Lauclian 

* The Codex Alexandrinus has been recently published in a convenient 
form by Mr. Cowper. An article on this manuscript will be found in the 
Christian Remembrancer for June, 1861, vol. xli., p. 367 seq. 

t This manuscript, which bears its name from the fact that the original 
writing has been in great measure erased to allow of a work of Ephrem the 
Syrian being written on the same parchment, has been edited in a handsome 
volume by Tischendorf, to which a very valuable Introduction has been pre- 
fixed. No one who may not have seen manuscripts of this nature can imag- 
ine the patience required to trace the all but erased writing of the original 
text. The interesting Codex Zacynthius (see Christian Remembrancer for 
January, 1862, vol. xliii., p. 128 seq.), now in the library of the Bible Society, 
is a manuscript of this nature, which any one interested in the subject will do 
well to obtain a sight of, if only the better to appreciate the labor and skill 
of Tregelles, who deciphered it, we believe, without the use of any chemical 
reagent. 



CRITICAL VALUE OF TEXT OF THE AUTH. VERSION. 41 

Manuscript (E), not later probably than the beginning of the 
sixth century ; for St. Paul's Epistles, the first four manu- 
scripts already specified, the valuable Claromontane (D Epp.), 
and the later but very important Augiensian Manuscript 
(F) ;* for the catholic epistles the same four, and a manu- 
script of the ninth century of fair critical value (containing 
also a portion of the Acts and the whole of St. Paul's Epis- 
tles), bearing the title Codex Angelicus (G) ; and even for 
the critically ill-supplied Apocalypse, the third and fourth of 
the great manuscripts first named (A and C), and a manu- 
script of a trustworthy character now in the Vatican Library 
(B Rev.), and of the eighth century. 

Of these ten manuscripts the eight most important have 
been published, some in a portable and convenient form, as, 
for example, the Vatican, Sinaitic, Alexandrian, Beza's, and 
Augiensian, some in more expensive forms, but all in such a 
manner as to make it not only possible, but easy for the stu- 
dent to read and study the text of each in its sequence and 
connection, and so to form a more trustworthy judgment of 
the peculiar character of the individual document. This has 
been facilitated still further by the parallel-column volumes 
edited by Mr. Hansell, to which reference has already been 
made. By means of this useful work the student is now en- 
abled not only to read continuously, but readily to compare 
all the really great manuscripts (except the Sinaitic), and 
thus to arrive at that sort of practical knowledge of these an- 
cient witnesses which is ever found to be of the utmost value 
to the intelligent critic of the text of the New Testament. 
The simplicity and dignified conciseness of the Vatican Man- 
uscript, the great expansiveness of our own Alexandrian 
Manuscript, the partially mixed characteristics of the Sinait- 
ic, the paraphrastic tone of the singular Codex Bezae — these 

* This manuscript has been excellently edited by Mr. Scrivener, and a 
very complete account of it given in the Introduction prefixed to the work. 
Some useful remarks on the manuscript will be found in the Christian Re- 
membrancer for June, 1859, vol. xxxvii., p. 500 seq. 

Hh 



42 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

general facts, all not only to be ascertained, but to be famil- 
iarly felt and instinctively acted on in the work of criticism, 
are now brought home to the student by the works above 
specified. We have thus, at the present time, not only in our 
public libraries documents of the greatest value of which our 
revisers had no knowledge, but, owing to the industry of re- 
cent critics and scholars, reprints and. editions which make 
them available almost for the humblest student. When we 
pause to think of our present critical treasures, and the easy 
access that is thus afforded to them, and remember that of 
the great manuscripts above alluded to only one was in any 
degree used, and that in the most imperfect manner, by those 
on whom our revisers had to rely for their text, it would seem 
impossible to doubt that, even if we had no additional rea- 
sons, it is now an imperative duty on all faithful scholars to 
combine in making available to all, the results of a cautious 
and intelligent revision of the text of our English Testament. 
But we have many more critical subsidies than those al- 
Additionai crit- rea( 3y specified. Not to weary the general read- 
ied materials. er w i t k details, we may shortly notice that by 
the labors of our own countrymen, Dr. Tregelles and Mr. 
Scrivener, and the industry of Dr. Tischendorf and other Con- 
tinental critics, we have now arrived at a greatly improved 
knowledge of all the leading cursive manuscripts, and have 
learned to assign to them the confessedly subordinate but 
still important place they hold in reference to textual crit- 
icism. The true readings of the quotations of Scripture in 
the early fathers have also, by the really exhaustless labors 
of Dr. Tregelles, now been carefully examined and tested, 
and we hope, by the publication of the concluding parts of 
his Greek Testament, will be soon made critically available 
to all students of the sacred text. In one department only 
is there still some deficiency. We lack a full knowledge of 
the Ancient Versions. In our knowledge of the Latin Ver- 
sions, whether the Old Latin or Vulgate, great advance has 
been made by the publications and collations of Tischendorf 



CRITICAL VALUE OF TEXT OF THE AUTH. VERSION. 



43 



and others. To the Syriac Versions & great and critically 
important addition has been made by the discovery and the 
publication of the singular, and sometimes rather wild, Cure- 
tonian Syriac Version.* Much has also been done in the 
Gothic Version by De Gabelentz and Loebe, Massmann, Bos- 
worth, and others, and something in the Coptic by Paul de 
Lagarde, and in the Ethiopic by Pell Piatt ; but it must be 
frankly admitted that what has been already said in refer- 
ence to exegesis (p. 26) is also partially true in reference to 
criticism. Our great critics have had avowedly to use the 
eyes of others in ascertaining the testimony of some of these 
last-mentioned versions, and of the less important but still in- 
teresting Armenian Version. It is not unfair to say that if 
Dr. Teschendorf had devoted only the time which he has un- 
fortunately spent in personal controversy to the study of the 
original languages of those two or three ancient Oriental 
versions, which he confessedly only cites on the authority 
of others, he would have put all scholars and critics of the 
New Testament under still greater obligations to his unwea- 
ried industry, and himself have been still better qualified to 
labor for the inspired Volume for which he has done so much. 
But, besides these great accessions of critical material, it 
Critical knowi- must not be forgotten that a fully commensu- 

edsje proportion- . • v • , • i i it -i • , i 

ateiy increased, rate increase in critical knowledge and in the 
power over materials is now distinctly to be recognized. Not 
only have we for the New Testament the completed work of 
three professed critical editors of a very high order, though 
of singularly different characteristics, Lachmann,Tischendorf, 
and Tregelles, but the useful and intelligent labors of several 

* A good account of this version and its characteristics will be found in 
the Christian Remembrancer for June, 1859, vol. xxxvii., p. 488 seq. The text 
is of a very composite nature ; sometimes it inclines to the shortness and 
simplicity of the Vatican Manuscript, but more commonly presents the same 
paraphrastic character of text as the Codex Bezae. It has some interesting 
readings, e.g., Matt, v., 4, 5, where it confirms the express statement of Ori- 
gen that the blessing on the meek came before that on mourners. > We do 
not, however, adopt the change. « 



44 ELLICOTT ON BEVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

interpreters and commentators, some of whom, like Dr. Meyer, 
have shown considerable acumen and aptitude for textual 
criticism. What is even more important, there may now be 
observed a fairly defined consent between these critics and 
commentators in numberless passages in the New Testament, 
where what would seem to be the true reading differs from 
that of the Revised Text. The useful little edition of the 
Greek Testament by Mr. Scrivener shows this very distinctly 
in the case of the professed critical editors, and a very cur- 
sory inspection of the comments of DeWette, Meyer, Alford, 
and others will substantiate the remark in the case of recent 
interpreters. Very many readings — perhaps nearly one half 
of those about which reasonable doubt may be felt — would 
thus, if considered by revisers of sufficient critical powers, be 
decided on at once by general consent. Manuscript evidence 
and critical judgment would be found clearly preponderant, 
and in a large portion of the work a text might be settled 
with very little difficulty. 

This is a consideration which may well weigh with us when 
the differences of opinion as to the true text are assumed to 
be so excessive that revisers would be stopped in limine by 
the difficulty of ascertaining what the true words really were 
of which they had to revise the translation. 

But we are now naturally led to the third question, which 
Undesirable to we have already noticed as requiring some an- 

formaTextus J „ 

Eeceptus. swer, What course would revisers have to fol- 
low? As we have said already, there are three possible 
courses they might take, which it may be well for us briefly 
to consider. Would it be well for them, in the first place, to 
agree on a critical Greek text, and attempt to construct a 
second Textus Receptus? To this question we venture to 
answer very unhesitatingly in the negative. Though we 
have much critical material and a fair amount of critical 
knowledge, we have certainly not yet acquired sufficient crit- 
ical judgment for any body of revisers hopefully to under- 
take such a work as this. All such attempts, whether on the 



CRITICAL VALUE OF TEXT OF THE AUTH. VERSIOK 45 

part of individuals or general bodies, are indeed at present 
much to be deprecated as certainly premature, and as natu- 
rally tending to delay ultimate progress. We are steadily 
gravitating to a consent as regards a very considerable num- 
ber of passages; let us not interfere with that natural pro- 
cess by trying to anticipate what we shall successfully arrive 
at if we have but patience and industry.* The failures of 
recent critical editors in their attempts to construct a text 
may well prove salutary warnings that we are not yet ready 
for the work, and that individual critics would do well to 
pause in their more ambitious efforts. As has been said, they 
really check progress ; if only from this circumstance, that 
the critical editor often fails to give a true statement of the 
actual case. He probably, on very serious deliberation, places 
a certain reading in his text, but perhaps neither by typog- 
raphy nor by marginal annotation indicates to the general 
reader that another reading has nearly an equal right to oc- 
cupy the position of honor. Possession has thus given many 
a reading a preferential character to which it really has no 
exclusive claim. It is in the text / and between that posi- 
tion and one outside of it, the difference, in the judgment of 
the ordinary student, is naturally considered to be immense. 
Griesbach saw this clearly, and very properly acted on it; 
but it has been often otherwise with recent editors. They 
have only indicated their opinion by their text, and have not 
at the same time perceived that in assigning a place in the 
text to any debated word or clause, they really have thus 
been passing a judgment of a much more final character than 
they themselves would, in many cases, wish it to be consid- 

* Some very good and sagacious remarks on the undesirableness of attempt- 
ing at present to construct an authoritative text will be found in the Chris- 
tian Remembrancer for June, 1859, vol. xxxvii., p. 503. See also vol. xlii., p. 
114, and vol. xlviii., p. 59. Whatever individual scholars may do, it is to be 
hoped that no commission would consider the formation of a text a prelim- 
inary duty to that of revision of the translation. The latter will gradually 
pave the way for the former ; but the process, we venture to think very de- 
cidedly, could not wisely be inverted. We must wait for a Received Text. 



46 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

ered. Let us, then, have no Textus Receptus, at any rate at 
present, but proceed, as good sense seems to indicate, tenta- 
tively, and be content to wait. Perhaps in a very few years 
the remaining number of passages about which there is still 
considerable doubt will, by the very tentative process of the 
work, be reduced almost indefinitely ; but, be it also remem- 
bered, it will not be so reduced unless the work is attempted, 
unless further experience is acquired, and textual revision 
actually commenced. 

In what has been already said we have expressed indirect- 
No recent crit- ly our opinion on the second possible course, viz., 

ical text to be J x r ' ' 

taken. that of adopting the text of some known critic, 

and of departing from it only where there seemed strong rea- 
son. Such a course would be very undesirable. No text 
has yet appeared which could be safely adopted as the text 
of a new revision. Would it be possible, for instance, to take 
the text of Lachmann ? Would it be reasonable to base our 
work on a text composed on the narrowest and most exclu- 
sive principles, though constructed with fair adherence to 
those principles ? Assuming that Lachmann has by his work 
substantiated his intention of giving to the world the text 
that was apparently current in the fourth century, would 
Lachmann himself, if appealed to, have judged his own text 
a suitable text to form the basis of a popular revised version ? 
Self-sufficient as he was," he was certainly a man of correct 
judgment and instinctive scholarship, and would have been 
the first to point out that a text which, on the most favora- 
ble assumption, was only the text of a certain century, was 
not the most convenient to bend into the direction which a 
hitherto current and received text would often oblige a medi- 
ating critic to take. Lachmann's text is really one based on 
little more than four manuscripts, and so is really more of a 
critical recension than a critical text. 

The case of Tischendorf is still more easily disposed of, as 
the question would at once arise, Which of this most incon- 
stant critic's texts are we to select ? Surely not the last, in 



! 



CRITICAL VALUE OF TEXT OF THE ATJTH. VERSION. 47 

which an exaggerated preference for a single manuscript, 
which he has had the good fortune to discover, has betrayed 
him into an almost child-like infirmity of critical judgment.* 
Surely also not the seventh edition, which was issued before 
the appearance of the Sinaitic Manuscript, and which exhib- 
its all the instability which a comparatively recent recogni- 
tion of the authority of cursive manuscripts might be sup- 
posed likely to introduce. If any edition of this restless crit- 
ic's Greek Testament had to be selected, perhaps we should 
feel it best to 20 back to the third ; but such a use of a now 
forgotten volume is never likely to be made when we have 
in our own country, and, it is to be hoped, soon in a complete 
state, such a far better text as that of Dr.Tregelles. 

And yet, though it seems hard to say so after the life-long 
labors of its estimable constructor, even this text could not 
wisely be chosen as the text to be used in the work of revi- 
sion. In the first place, in the earlier parts of his work, Dr. 
Tregelles had not the advantage of the Sinaitic Manuscript. 
In the second place, his critical principles, especially his gen- 
eral principle of estimating and regarding modern manu- 
scripts, are now, perhaps justly, called in question by many 
competent scholars. Thirdly, though his materials have been 
so much more abundant, he approximates, at any rate in some 
parts of his great work, so closely to the same results as Lach- 
mann, that any objections which may exist to the choice of 
Lachmann's as a standard text apply with nearly equal force 

* An able writer in the Christian Remembrancer for April, 1866, has care- 
fully analyzed the amount of fluctuation which is to be observed in Tischen- 
dorf 's latest critical decisions as compared with those in earlier editions. 
From this analysis it would seem that between his Greek Testament of 1849 
and that of 1859, or his 3d and so-called 7th editions, there are 1296 varia- 
tions ; and that in nearly half of these he returns, in the later edition, to the 
Textus Receptus. When, however, we examine his recent and last edition, 
it appears that, to go no farther than the first thirty-two chapters, he reverses 
his judgment of 1859 in as many as 168 places, and again falls back on his 
earlier opinion of 1849. This great inconstancy is to be attributed to a nat- 
ural want of sobriety of critical judgment and to an unreasonable deference 
to the readings as found in his own Codex Sinaiticus. 



48 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

to that of Tregelles. Lastly, though it seems an ungracious 
criticism, yet it must, in all frankness, be said that the text 
of Tregelles is not in all respects satisfactory. It is rigid and 
mechanical, and sometimes fails to disclose that critical in- 
stinct and peculiar scholarly sagacity which is so much need- 
ed in the great and responsible work of constructing a crit- 
ical text of the Greek Testament. The edition of Tregelles 
will last, perhaps, to the very end of time as a noble monu- 
ment of faithful, enduring, and accurate labor in the cause of 
Truth ; it will always be referred to as an uniquely trustwor- 
thy collection of assorted critical materials of the greatest 
value, and, as such, it will probably never be superseded ; but 
the text which is based on these materials is not likely ever 
to be a popular or current text, or ever to be used otherwise 
than as a faithful summary of critical principles which have 
by no means met with general acceptance. 

We seem driven, then, to the third alternative in reference 
.Received Text to a text — solvere ambulando, or, in other words, 

to be used, but , 

to be revised, to leave the Received Text as the standard, but 
to depart from it in every case where critical evidence and 
the consent of the best editors point out the necessity of the 
change. Such a text would not be, nor deserve to be, es- 
teemed a strictly critical text : it would be often too conserv- 
ative ; it would also be occasionally inconsistent ; but, if thus 
formed by a body of competent scholars, it would be a criti- 
cal revision of a very high, and, probably, very popular char- 
acter. It would, at any rate, be free from one great disturb- 
ing element in all critical labors, individual bias and personal 
predilections. 

Such a work would not be by any means difficult. In the 
first place, it has been attempted by five scholars working in 
combination, and found by experience not in any degree to 
be unmanageable or unsatisfactory in its results. In the 
next place, those engaged in the work would have, not mere- 
ly the actual external critical evidence whereon to rely for 
the correction of the text on which they were working, but, 



CRITICAL VALUE OF TEXT OF THE AUTH. VERSION. 49 

as has been already hinted, they would also have the judg- 
ment, very frequently unanimous, first, of professed critics, 
and, secondly, of intelligent interpreters, on which they might 
often feel disposed conscientiously to rely. They would have 
available not only the critical materials, but the practical 
judgments that had been passed on them in the texts of the 
best editors and commentators. 

This is a consideration that deserves very carefully to be 
borne in mind by any who may be inclined to overestimate 
the difficulties which revisers would meet with in the matter 
of a text. 

It need scarcely be added that such a mode of proceeding 
would have to be tentative. Principles would be slowly 
formed as the work went on, but at length they would be- 
come fixed and recognized, and all that would be found nec- 
essary would be to review all the earlier part of the work, 
during which the experience was being acquired, and to bring 
it up to the general standard. And the results would be 
found to be satisfactory. We are bold enough to say this, 
because trial has fairly shown that what is here specified and 
recommended is feasible and hopeful. Such, then, would 
seem to be the best mode of dealing with the confessedly dif- 
ficult question which stands third in the questions of the pres- 
ent chapter. 

The last question may now be shortly answered : On the 
Amount of assumption that such a mode of dealing with 
mated? eS the text loas adopted, what amount of change, 
due purely to textual revision, might be expected in our pres- 
ent Authorized Version ? Such a question it certainly seems 
very desirable to attempt to answer, as there is evidently a 
very exaggerated idea now popularly entertained as to the 
amount of change that would be introduced by judicious 
textual criticism. But how shall the answer be made ? Per- 
haps thus : By taking account of the changes of text that 
actually were proposed in one Gospel and three long Epistles 
in a revision already alluded to — the Revision by Five Cler- 



50 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF TEE NEW TESTAMENT. 

gymen of the Authorized Version of St. John's Gospel and 
the first three of St. Paul's Epistles, as arranged in our ordi- 
nary Testaments, viz., Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians. The 
Gospel and these three Epistles amount to, estimated in ver- 
ses, between one quarter and one third of the whole New 
Testament : an estimate, therefore, founded on the considera- 
tion of so large a portion of the sacred Volume will not be 
very seriously incorrect. 

By inspection of the Revision referred to, we find that in 
the 2006 verses which the Gospel and three Epistles together 
contain, there are 253 changes of text due to critical consid- 
erations, being 48 for the 879 verses of the Gospel of St. John, 
56 for the 433 verses of the Epistle to the Romans, 91 for the 
437 verses oflthe First Epistle to the Corinthians, and 58 for 
the 257 verses of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. In 
this enumeration we observe that there would seem to be an 
increase in change as the work went on ; but it would seem 
ultimately to have become stationary, and to have finally 
amounted to about one change in every five verses in St. 
Paul's Epistles. And that this seems accurate may be proved 
by an inspection of the changes in the Revision of the four 
succeeding Epistles, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and 
Colossians — in all 496 verses. Here we find 109 textual 
changes, or very nearly the same proportion. If, then, we 
assume that more changes would have been made in St. 
John's Gospel if the gradually established standard of revis- 
ion had been applied to it, though, as the nature of the text 
reminds us, not to the extent arrived at for St.Paul's Epistles 
— and if also we take into account the increase of differences 
over those in St. John's Gospel that would be probably found 
in the Synoptical Gospels, and in the Acts and Revelation, 
we should hardly be far wrong in estimating the amount of 
changes that would be introduced in any English revised ver- 
sion of the whole 6944 verses of the New Testament as not 
exceeding one for every five verses, or under fourteen hundred 
in all, very many of these being of a wholly unimportant 
character. 



CRITICAL VALUE OF TEXT OF THE AUTH. YERSIOX. 51 

Such seems the answer to the last question we have sug- 
gested in the present chapter. The subject of the text and 
of probable textual change seems now concluded, and the 
second portion of our work to begin, viz., a consideration of, 
and finally a rough estimate of the changes that would have 
to be introduced on grammatical, exegetical, and possibly 
also some other grounds which may suggest themselves in 
the review of the whole subject. 

This second class of changes can only be introduced with 
strict and persistent reference to the general aspect and char- 
acteristics of the last revision. We proceed, then, next to 
consider these characteristics, and the principles on which 
the Authorized Version of the New Testament appears to 
have been constructed. 



52 ELLICOTT ON BE VISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



CHAPTER III. 

XEADESTG CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AUTHORIZED VERSION. 

It is obvious that no revision of the present version can 
Character of our properly be undertaken that does not preserve 

version must be . . . 

preserved. the wisely -drawn lines on which that version 

was constructed. No reasonable Englishman would tolerate 
a version designed for popular use, and to be read publicly, 
that departed from the ground-principles and truly noble dic- 
tion of the last revision. Such a version would simply pass 
into that limbus of " improved" and happily forgotten trans- 
lations to which almost every generation, for the last hun- 
dred and fifty or two hundred years, has added some speci- 
men. The present century has been more prolific than those 
which preceded it, but very few of the yet extant revisions 
have been happy in preserving the character, tone, rhythm, 
and diction of the version they have undertaken to amend. 
It may be wise then, at the very outset, to endeavor to ob- 
tain a clear knowledge of the principal features and general 
characteristics of our present version, that so, before revision 
is undertaken, we may be able to define sharply what must 
be its nature and limits, if it is to be a revision that is in any 
degree to meet with general acceptance. 

If it is to be hereafter a popular version it can only become 
so by exhibiting, in every change that may be introduced, a 
sensitive regard for the diction and tone of the present ver- 
sion, and also by evincing, in the nature and extent of the 
changes, a due recognition of the whole internal history of 
the English New Testament. In other words, the new work 
must be on the old lines. 

And now what were those lines, and how may we best 
trace them ? Perhaps thus : first, by briefly considering what 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSIOX. 53 

may be termed the pedigree of the present English Version ; 
and, secondly, by shortly noticing the principles which in the 
last revision appear mainly to have been followed. 

The literary pedigree of our present version has perhaps 
Pedigree of our never been more succinctly, and, for the most 
present version. partj accurately stated than in the following 
words : " Our present English version was based upon the 
Bishops' Bible of 1568, and that upon Cranmer's of 1539, 
which was a new edition of Matthew's Bible of 1537, partly 
from Coverdale of 1535, but chiefly from Tyndale; in other 
words, our present authorized translation is mainly that of 
Tyndale made from the original Hebrew and Greek."* A lit- 
tle expansion and illustration of this sentence will enable the 
general reader fairly to appreciate the internal character of 
our present version. 

The first fact clearly to be borne in mind is this, that, after 
all changes and revisions, our present English Testament is 
substantially that of William Tyndale. f This we shall deem 
it necessary to prove distinctly by a -comparison in parallel 
columns of three or four passages, taken from different parts 
of the New Testament. Before, however, we give these spec- 
imens, let us briefly notice the characteristics of this version, 
to which our own maintains so close a resemblance. 

Tyndale's English Testament of 1534 will remain to the end 
Tyndaie's Ver- of time a monument of the courage, patience, 

sion : made from . iii-ii*.«i 

the Greek. learning, competent scholarship, thorough faith- 

* This accurate and inclusive sentence is taken from the Preface to the 
scholarly work of Bosworth and Waring, entitled Gothic and Anglo-Saxon 
Gospels, Lond., 1865. See pages xxviii., xxix. The word "mainly" has 
been italicized for the reasons that will appear later in this chapter. The re- 
lation of the A.V. to Tyndale's is very close. 

t It has been observed by Mr.Westcott that in several portions of the New 
Testament Tyndale's original translation remains almost intact. For in- 
stance, in the 1st Epistle of St. John about nine tenths are due to Tyndale, 
and even in the more difficult and (as to translation) debatable Epistle to the 
Hebrews about five sixths belong to the same faithful hand. See History of 
English Bible, p. 211, note. An interesting and appreciative estimate of the 
character of this good man's great work will be found in the current number 
of the Quarterly Review, vol. cxxviii., p. 316. See above, p. 16, note f. 



54 ELLICOTT ON BEVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

fulness, and clear English sense of its noble-hearted and de- 
voted editor. Of his courage and patience history sufficient- 
ly speaks : in reference to his learning and scholarship, with 
which we are here more especially concerned, a few remarks 
may not unsuitably be made. That his learning was suffi- 
cient for his work is shown by the work itself. Besides this, 
however, we know that more than twenty years before his 
first edition of 1525 he made translations of portions of the 
New Testament, and Tyndale was not a man to let those 
twenty years pass away without study and fresh acquisitions 
of knowledge. We know also that he went to Cambridge, 
after having spent some years at Oxford, most probably with 
the view of studying under Erasmus, who himself might have 
been contemplating the great though hurried work which he 
did a very few years later. We further know that he actu- 
ally produced evidence to Tonstall of his having competent 
knowledge of the Greek language, and Tonstall was certain- 
ly not a man to whom an incompetent Greek scholar would 
have been very likely to have submitted any specimen of his 
powers. Whatever may be said of Tyndale's knowledge of 
Hebrew prior to his publication of the New Testament, it 
seems perfectly clear, even from these external considera- 
tions, that he had a thoroughly competent knowledge of 
Greek, and, further, that he had been studiously preparing 
himself for his responsible work. Really, with his work in 
our hands, it would almost seem superfluous to have adduced 
any other evidence ; but, as very unguarded statements have 
been made in reference to Tyndale's Testament, even by an 
authority as great as Mr. Hallam,* and as the students of 

* See Literature of Europe, chap, vi., § 37, vol. i., p. 52G, where we meet 
with the thoroughly mistaken assertion that from Luther's translation, ' ' and 
from the Latin Vulgate, the English translation of Tyndale and Coverdale is 
avowedly taken." That he was indebted to some extent to Luther for his 
prologues and notes in the edition of 1534 may be perhaps fairly admitted, 
but that his translation was taken from that of Luther may most confidently 
be denied. For a full account of Tyndale's labors, see the excellent Histor- 
ical Account of the English Versions prefixed to Bagster's Hexapla, p. 40 seq., 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSION. 55 

Tyndale's Testament are but few, it may be desirable at the 
very outset to correct the erroneous impression that we owe 
the real original of our present version to German transla- 
tions and second-rate learning. It is quite reasonable to be- 
lieve that, especially in the corrections he introduced in his 
edition of 1534, and in the substance of some of his terse 
notes, he may have owed something to the learning and la- 
bors of foreign reformers ; but it is also certain that his ver- 
sion is essentially of English origin, and that the earnest and 
devoted man to whom we owe it was fully equal to carry 
through singlehanded the great work which he had under- 
taken. 

In addition to this, it does not seem too much to say that 
Tyndale's knowledge and scholarship, as far as we can infer 
from the times and the circumstances of the times in which 
he lived, was exactly of the kind, if one man was to do the 
work, best suited for such an undertaking. Had he been 
more of a professed scholar there would have been some 
traces of pedantic accuracy, some indications of adherence to 
the general tone of the Yulgate on the one hand, or to the 
more cultivated language of the day on the other, not any of 
which are to be recognized in the noble homeliness of the 
version of William Tyndale. As it was providentially or- 
dered, he was the patient, devoted Englishman, competently 
learned, who made it his care to write for English eyes and 
English hearts, and did so with faithfulness, geniality, and 
breadth. 

The first fact and characteristic, then, of Tyndale's Version 
is that it was fairly made from the Greek, and that Tyndale 
had certainly sufficient learning to do well this portion of the 
great work of his life. 

and compare Westcott, H istory of English Bible, p. 174 seq. Fuller's sum- 
mary is characteristically short and quaint: "However, what he [Tyndale] 
undertook was to be admired as glorious ; what he performed, to be com- 
mended as profitable ; wherein he failed is to be excused as pardonable, and 
to be scored on the account rather of that age than of the author himself. " 
See Church History, book v., 4, 39, p. 224 (Lond., 1055). 



56 ELLICOTT ON MEVISION OF TEE NEW TESTAMENT. 

The second characteristic of his version is one which may- 
independent of at first surprise us, but for which we may be 

the then extant ■ ■ -i ■• . ,„ ,, 

versions. heartily tnankiul, viz., that, as he himself tells 

us, he made no use of the then extant versions of the Scrip- 
ture. The most popular version would no doubt then have 
been the easy and smoothed edition of Wicliffe's original ver- 
sion commonly associated with the thoroughly honorable 
name of Wicliffe's curate at Lutterworth, John Purvey.* 
That neither this nor any of the Wicliffite versions were 
made the basis of Tyndale's work is certainly a subject for 
profound thankfulness. With every desire to honor the name 
and labors of Wicliffe, and with a full recognition of his 
general accuracy as a translator, and even a critic, we can 
not forget, first, that his version was from the Vulgate, and 
was thus a version of a version ; secondly, that it adheres, 
where possible, to the form and structure of the Latin, the 
intention of the version being, most probably, not only to 
benefit the mere English reader, but to aid the student of 
the Vulgate ; thirdly, that, though generally very homely in 
its language, it still has many more words of Latin origin 
than we should have expected from Wicliffe's avowed desire 
to give an English Testament to English readers. It must 
then be regarded as providential that such a version did not 
form the basis of our present Bible. Had it been so ordered, 
the English Bible of our day would have become ultimately 
a sort of Rhemish Version, rigid, cold, and Latinized. f 

* For an account of this reviser and of his labors, see the Preface to Tor- 
shall and Madden, Wicliffite Versions, p. xxviii. seq. Purvey did his work 
■with care and judgment, and had conceptions of the duties of a translator of 
the Scriptures considerably in advance of the times in which he lived. See 
also Historical Account (Bagster's Hexapla), p. 28 seq., and Westcott, Histo- 
ry of English Bible, p. 16. 

f It is singular that a writer so well informed as Marsh (Lectures on the 
English Language) should regard Tyndale's Version as little more than a re- 
cension of Wicliffe's, and "Tyndale as merely a full-grown Wicliffe" (p. 627). 
It is, of course, not only possible, but probable, that Tyndale was acquainted 
with Wicliffe's, or, more probably, Purvey's Version, but that he used it in 
any way in making his own translation may most justly be doubted. Tyn- 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSION 57 

It is equally providential that the Wicliffite Version that 
is attributed to Purvey, and which ultimately superseded the 
earlier version, did not become either the basis or model for 
our own version ; for, though Purvey's prologue to his work 
is most interesting,* and some of his principles of translation 
thoroughly just, yet a version so studious of English idiom 
rather than of grammatical accuracy, and so loose and para- 
phrastic as we certainly sometimes find it, would have been 
a very foundation of sand for the English Bible of the future. 
It is, then, not without just thankfulness that we find that 
neither of these versions exercised any appreciable influence 
whatever either on Tyndale's Testament or on any of those 
that followed it, unless, indeed, it be the du-giot Testament 
of Coverdale. 

A third characteristic of Tyndale's Version must briefly be 
Tyndale's Ver- noticed — that it was designedly a popular ver- 
popuiar. sion. The well-known and often quoted words 

that " the boy that driveth the plow should know more of 
the Scripture"f than the theologians of the day, represented 
truly Tyndale's life-long purpose. It is to this steady aim 
and purpose that the special and striking idiomatic excel- 
lence of the Authorized Version is pre-eminently due. To 
this deep resolve we owe it that our own English Version is 
now what we feel it to be — a version speaking to heart and 

dale's work seems to have been perfectly independent. See Westcott, Histo- 
ry of English Bible, p. 176 seq. 

* This prologue will be found in Forshall and Madden, Wicliffite Versions, 
p. xxv. seq., and a portion of it in Historical Account (Bagster's Hexapla), p. 
28 seq. The prologue is thoroughly interesting and sensible. He notices 
his obligation to ' ' Lire [N. de Lyra] in the elde testamente that helpyd full 
miche in hys werke ;" and in reference to translation lays down the general 
canon that. "ye beste translatyng out of Latyne into Englysh is to translate 
after the sentence, and not only after the wordis." Many a reviser may take 
this hint. 

t The influence exerted by Erasmus and his labors on Tyndale has often 
been noticed. Even in this familiar quotation it would seem that Tyndale 
was but reproducing a sentiment from the "Paraclesis" of Erasmus, prefixed 
to his Testament of 1519. See Historical Account of the English Versions 
(Bagster), p. 43, 44. 

Il 



58 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

soul, and appealing to our deepest religious sensibilities with 
that mingled simplicity, tenderness, and grandeur that make 
us often half doubt, as we listen, whether apostles and evan- 
gelists are not still exercising their Pentecostal gift, and 
themselves speaking to us in the very tongue wherein we 
were born. Verily we may bless and praise God that Tyn- 
dale w T as moved to form this design, and that he w T as permit- 
ted faithfully to adhere to it, for, beyond doubt, it is to that 
popular element in his version not only that we owe nearly 
all that is best in our present English Testament, but that 
there remains to this very hour, in the heart of all earnest 
English people, an absolute intolerance of any changes in the 
w r ords or phraseology that would tend to obscure this spe- 
cial, and, we may justly say, this providential characteristic* 
Tyndale not only furnished the type for all succeeding ver- 
sions, but bequeathed principles which will exercise a pre- 
servative influence over the version of the English Bible, 
through every change or revision that may await it, until 
scriptural revision shall be no longer needed and change shall 
be no more. 

We may now proceed to show by actual comparison the 
close relation that exists between Tyndale's Version and our 
present Authorized Version. Three passages have been cho- 
sen, not from containing any greater amount of coincidences 
of expressions than others, but simply as being portions of 
Scripture of familiar interest and of convenient length. 

The first shall be the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, 
St. Luke xvi., 19-31. 

* The eloquent words of Froude, when alluding to the publication of Cov- 
erdale's Bible, and its close connection with the labors of Tyndale, may well 
be cited. The historian justly says, "The peculiar genius — if such a word 
may be permitted — which breathes through it — the mingled tenderness and 
majesty — the Saxon simplicity — the preternatural grandeur — unequaled, un- 
approached in the attempted improvements of modern scholars — all are here, 
and the impress of the mind of one man — William Tyndal." — History of En- 
gland, vol. iii., p. 81. These words the student will find truly deserved. The 
more Tyndale's labors are considered, the more will they be valued. 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSION. 



59 



Ttndale. 15S i. 

10 Ther was a certayne ryche man, 
which was clothed in purple & fyne 
bysse & fared deliciously every daye. 
20 And ther was a certayne begger, 
named Lazarus, whiche laye at his 
gate full of soores 21 dessyringe to be 
refresshed with the cromes which fell 
from the ryche mannes borde. Nev- 
erthelesse the dogges came & licked 
his soores. 22 And yt fortuned that 
the begger dyed, & was carried by 
the Angelles into Abrahams bosome. 
The riche man also died, & was buried. 

23 And beinge in hell in tormentes, 
he lyfte up his eyes & sawe Abraham 
a farre of, & Lazarus in his bosome 

24 & he cryed & sayd : father Abra- 
ham have mercy on me & sende Laz- 
arus that he may dippe the tippe of 
bis fynger in water & cole my tonge 
for I am tourmented in this flame. 

25 But Abraham sayd vnto him Sonne, 
remember that thou in thy lyfe tyme 
receavedst thy pleasure & contrary- 
wyse Lazarus payne. Now therefore 
is he comforted, & thou art punyssh- 
ed. 26 Beyonde all this, bitwene you 
& vs ther is a greate space set, so that 
they which wolde goo from hence to 
you cannot : nether maye come from 
thence to vs. 

27 Then he sayd : I praye the ther- 
fore father, send him to my fathers 
housse. 28 For I have fyve brethren ; 
for to warne them, lest they also come 
into this place of tourment. 29 Abra- 
ham sayd vnto him they have Moses 
& the Prophetes let them heare them. 
33 And he sayd : naye father Abra- 
ham, but yf one came unto them, 
from the ded, they wolde repent. 31 He 
sayd vnto him : If they heare not Mo- 
ses & the Prophetes nether will they 
beleve though one roose from deeth 
agayne. 



Auth. Version. 1611. 

19 There was a certain rich man, 
which was clothed in purple and fine 
linen, and fared sumptuously every 
day : 20 And there was a certain 
beggar named Lazarus, which was 
laid at his gate, fall of sores, 21 And 
desiring to be fed with the crumbs 
which fell from the rich man's table : 
moreover the dogs came and licked his 
sores. 22 And it came to pass, that 
the beggar died, and was carried by 
the angels into Abraham's bosom : the 
rich man also died, and was buried ; 

23 And in hell he lift up his e}-es, 
being in torments, and seeing Abra- 
ham afar off, and Lazarus in his bo- 
som. 2i And he cried and said, Fa- 
ther Abraham, have mercy on me, 
and send Lazarus, that he may dip 
the tip of his finger in water, and 
cool my tongue ;' for I am tormented 
in this flame. 2a But Abraham said, 
Son, remember that thou in thy life- 
time receivedst thy good things, and 
likewise Lazarus evil things ; but now 
he is comforted, and thou art torment- 
ed. 26 And beside all this, between us 
and you there is a great gulf fixed ; so 
that they which would pass from hence 
to you cannot ; neither can they pass 
to us, that would come from thence. 

27 Then he said, I pray thee there- 
fore, father, that thou wouldest send 
him to my father's house : 28 For I 
have five brethren ; that he may tes- 
tify unto them, lest they also come 
into this place of torment. " Abra- 
ham said unto him, They have Moses 
and the prophets ; let them hear them. 
30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham ; 
but if one went unto them from the 
dead, they will repent. 31 And he said 
unto him, If they hear not Moses and 
the prophets, neither will they be 
persuaded, though one rose from the 
dead. 



60 ELLICOTT ON BE VISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

In this passage we observe several interesting differences 
as well as coincidences. 

In verse 19 we should have hardly, expected to have found 
comments on m Tyndale's Version the Grecized " bysse." In 
the translation. Wicliffe's Version the translation is "whight 
silk," and in Cranmer's " fyne whyte." The more familiar 
" linen" appears to have come in with Coverdale. In the 
same verse " deliciously" held its ground in the leading En- 
glish versions till the last revision. The less accurate " lay," 
in the following verse, was only changed into the more accu- 
rate and suggestive " was laid" in the Bishops' Bible. The 
translation of the here somewhat peculiar aXXa ml (ol kvveq 
k.tX.) is curiously varied. Tyndale probably aloner etains the 
most strictly correct translation of the dXXa, though he over- 
looks the K-at. Coverdale takes the lighter form " but ;" Cran- 
mer conveniently lets the adversative particle fall through 
("the dogges came also"), and certainly puts the "also" in 
the wrong place. The Genevan Version falls back on " yea," 
the A.V. adopts the general but not exact " moreover."* 

* The same inexact rendering is retained by Alford, Auth. Version Revised 
(in loco). We can hardly doubt, however, that the words convey more than 
the mere addition of another item to the sorrowful account, though it may be 
difficult to catch the exact idea intended to be conveyed by the adversative 
particle. Meyer (Kommentar, p. 478, ed. 4), with his usual accuracy, observes 
that the aXXd must mark some opposition, the kui some enhancement; but 
we shall find it difficult probably to take his view of the passage, that the 
dogs increased the beggar's sufferings — " Howbeit (instead of being fed with 
the crumbs) the dogs also came and licked his sores, so increasing pain" (die 
unreinen Thiere, und ihr den Schmerz des Hiilflosen vermehrendes Lecken ! 
Meyer). De Wette, Ewald, and others, following the majority of the older 
expositors, rightly hold that the dogs must be considered to have shown a 
sort of compassion — which was not shown to Lazarus by his fellow-men ; but 
they obliterate the force of the a\\a. Bornemann gives the gloss " egestate 
ejus micas de divitis mensa allatae vulneribus succurrebant canes," but the 
same objection remains. Can the meaning be that, though Lazarus desired 
(and probably received) what really was the portion of the dogs (see Matt. 
xv. , 27), even the dogs notwithstanding showed a sort of pity ? Meyer urges, 
on the contrary, that the whole idea of the narrative is the unrelieved misery 
of Lazarus on this side of the grave. The exegesis of these simple words is 
certainly difficult. 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSION. 61 

In verse 22 the pleasantly quaint but archaic "yt fortuned," 
after holding its ground in one or two of the older versions, 
is conveniently changed into the more natural translation by 
the last revisers, who probably took it from the Rhemish 
Version, to which it is certain that they were from time to 
time indebted, though it was not one of the versions to which 
they were specially directed to refer. 

In verse 23 the A.V. clearly improves upon the older ver- 
sion, and preserves in the simple participle the tragic force, 
not to say even the tone of the retrospective v7rapxuv, which 
is quite lost in the resolved "when he was in torments" of 
the Rhemish Version. 

In verse 25 Coverdale adopts, though with an enfeebled 
order and force of words, the more literal " good" and " evil," 
and appears to have suggested the change in A.V., all the 
other versions (except the Rhemish) having followed Tyndale. 
The same hand introduced "tormented" in the same verse, 
and passed it onward to Bishop Cox for the Bishops' Bible. 

The excellent change in the translation of x" "/- 1 " (verse 26) 
is due apparently to the Genevan Version, and is followed by 
the Bj.shops' ; the scarcely less important "fixed," immedi- 
ately afterward, appears for the first time in the Rhemish* 
Version, and is adopted by our own revisers. In the last 
verse the improved translation of 7rao-0//<7ov-ai is due to A.V., 
all the other versions without exception having here followed 
the earlier translation. 

The second passage we have chosen is of a more technical 
Second passage, character, and useful for showing the amount of 

Acts xxvii.,27- , . , 

44. connection between the two versions where more 

verbal change might naturally be expected. The portion 

* We can hardly equally commend the rendering of x«°"A* a adopted by this 
version — " a great chaos." The correct translation of the sad and monitory 
hrnpiKrai is found also in Wicliffe (" stablished"), and is due obviously to the 
"nrmatum est" of the Vulgate. It may be remarked, in passing, that the 
idea of a vast chasm separating the abodes of the evil and the good is not a 
Jewish idea. Compare Lightfoot in loco, and Eisenmenger, Entdeckt. Juden- 
tkum t Yo\. ii., p. 314. 



62 



ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



chosen is the concluding part 
xxvii., 27-44. 

Ttndale. 

27 But when the fourtenthe nyght 
was come, as we were caryed in Adria 
about mydnyght, the shipmen demed 
that ther appered some countre vnto 
them, 28 & sounded, & founde it xx 
feddoms. And when they had gone 
a lytell further they sounded agayne 
& founde xv feddoms. 29 Then fear- 
inge lest they shuld have fallen on 
some Roche, they cast iiii ancres out 
of the sterne & wysshed for the daye. 
30 As the shipmen were about to flee 
out of the ship & had let doune the 
bote into the see vnder a coloure as 
tho they wolde have cast ancres out 
of the forshippe : 3l Paul sayd unto 
the under captavne & the soudiers ex- 
cepte these abyde in the ship ye can- 
not be safe. 32 Then the soudiers cut 
of the rope of the bote & let it fall 
awaye. 

33 And in the meane tyme betwixt 
that & daye Paul besought them all 
to take meate, sayinge : this is the 
fourtenthe daye that ye have taried & 
continued fastynge receavinge noth- 
inge at all. 34 Wherfore I praye you 
to take meate : for this is no dout is 
for youre helth : for ther shall not a 
heere fall from the heed of eny of you. 
35 And when he had thus spoken, he 
toke breed & gave thankes to God in 
presence of them all & brake it & be- 
ganne to eate. 36 Then were they all 
of good cheare, & they also toke meate. 

37 We were all together in the ship, two 
hundred 3 score and sixtene soules. 

38 And when they had eaten ynough 
they lightened the ship & cast out the 
wheate into the see. 

39 When yt was daye they knew not 
the lande but they spied a certayne 
haven with a banke. into the which 



of St. Paul's shipwreck, Acts 



Auth. Veesiox. 

27 But when the fourteenth night 
was come, as we were driven up and 
down in Adria, about midnight the 
shipmen deemed that they drew near 
to some country; 23 And sounded, 
and found it twenty fathoms : and 
when they had gone a little further, 
they sounded again, and found it fif- 
teen fathoms. 29 Then fearing lest we 
should have fallen upon rocks, they 
cast four anchors out of the stern, and 
wished for the day. 30 And as the 
shipmen were about to flee out of the 
ship, when they had let down the boat 
into the sea, under colour as though 
they would have cast anchors out of 
the foreship, 31 Paul said to the centu- 
rion and to the soldiers, Except these 
abide in the ship, ye can not be saved. 
32 Then the soldiers cut off the ropes 
of the boat, and let her fall off. 

33 And while the day was coming 
on, Paul besought them all to take 
meat, saying, This day is the four- 
teenth day that ye have tarried and 
continued fasting, having taken noth- 
ing. 34 W T herefore I pray you to take 
some meat ; for this is for your health ; 
for there shall not an hair fall from 
the head of any of you. 35 And when 
he had thus spoken, he took bread, 
and gave thanks to God in presence 
of them all ; and when he had broken 
it, he began to eat. 36 Then were they 
all of good cheer, and they also took 
some meat. 37 And we were in all in 
the ship two hundred threescore and 
sixteen souls. 38 And when they had 
eaten enough, they lightened the ship, 
and cast out the wheat into the sea. 

39 And when it was day, they knew 
not the land ; but they discovered a 
certain creek with a shore, into the 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSION. 



63 



TrNDALE. 

they were mynded (yf yt were pos- 
sible) to thrust in the ship. 40 And 
when they had taken up the ancres, 
they commytted them selves unto the 
see, & lowsed the rudder bondes & 
hoysed up the mayne sayle to the 
wynde & drue to londe. 4L But they 
chaunsed on a place, which had the 
see on bothe the sydes, & thrust in the 
ship. And the foore part stucke fast 
& moved not, but the hynder brake 
with the violence of the waves. 

42 The soudears counsell was to kyll 
the presoners lest eny of them, when 
he had swome out shulde fie awaye. 

43 But the under coptayne willinge to 
save Paul kept them from their pur- 
pose, & commanded that they that 
could swyme shulde cast them selves 
first in to the see & scape to londe. 

44 And the other he commanded to 
goo some on hordes & some on broken 
peces of the ship. And so it came to 
passe that they come all safe to londe. 



Auth. Version. 
which they were minded, if it were 
possible, to thrust in the ship. 40 And 
when they had taken up the anchors, 
they committed themselves unto the 
sea, and loosed the rudder bands, and 
hoised up the mainsail to the wind, 
and made toward shore. 4I And fall- 
ing into a place where two seas met, 
they ran the ship aground ; and the 
forepart stuck fast, and remained im- 
moveable, but the hinder part was 
broken with the violence of the waves. 
42 And the soldiers' counsel was to 
kill the prisoners, lest any of them 
should swim out, and escape. 43 But 
the centurion, willing to save Paul, 
kept them from their purpose ; and 
commanded that they which could 
swim should cast themselves first into 
the sea, and get to land : 44 And the 
rest, some on boards, and some on 
broken pieces of the ship. And so it 
came to pass, that they escaped all 
safe to land. 



We may here again shortly notice a few of the changes. 
In verse 27 our own version apparently has the credit of 
Comments on the more vigorous translation of %ia(htpouivu)v, the 

some of the .*- . . mi, 

changes. other versions either following Tyndale or the 

very feeble " as we were sayling" of Cranmer. Some good 
examples of the true force and meaning of the word will be 
found in that excellent repertory of illustration, the notes of 
Wetstein. 

In verse 28, Coverdale is apparently the only translator 
who has ventured on the longer and perhaps more profes- 
sional " cast out the lead" ("kesten down a plomet," Wicl.) : 
the rest all adopt the shorter and simpler form. 

In verse 29, the Genevan Version is the first to be a little 
more literal in the translation of Tpa^Q tottovq (" rough 
places"), though in the A. V. the change to the plural at once 
shows the close care of the revisers, and presents a very fair- 
ly approximate rendering. 



64 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF TEE NEW TESTAMENT. 

In verse 30 we may congratulate ourselves on having es- 
caped the " mariners" of the Genevan Version — the only ver- 
sion that has committed itself to this somewhat vapid word. 
The professional change of gender in verse 32 is found only 
in A.V. It might have been useful in Tyndale's rendering, 
to mark that it was not the rope, but the boat that fell away : 
it is apparently unnecessary in the A.V. 

In the first words of verse 33, our version is very happy in 
the delicate change from " when" (" when the daye beganne 
to appear," Cran.,Bish. ; comp. Cov.) to " while," just giving 
the required shade of meaning so as to be true to the orig- 
inal. Nothing shows more clearly than these slight touches 
the thorough care and faithfulness with which the last re- 
visers executed their work. 

In verse 35 the resolved translation of the participle," when 
he had broken it," in the A.V., and derived probably from 
Cranmer, is scarcely an improvement on the more idiomatic 
and equally accurate " and [he] brake it and beganne to eate" 
of the older version. No clauses are more difficult to trans- 
late with ease and vigor than the participle clauses in the 
New Testament, and especially in St. Luke. The varied re- 
lations of time, manner, and circumstance will sometimes all 
be found involved in a group of participles round one soli- 
tary finite verb, to exhibit which in a faithfnl, and, at the 
same time, easy translation, is commonly very difficult. Here 
it seems natural to mark by a resolved translation the action 
that followed the words, but it scarcely seems necessary to 
mark in the same way the priority of the breaking of the 
bread to the eating of it. But, after all, these are matters in 
which individual judgments will necessarily greatly vary. 

In the next verse but one a slight difference occurs in the 
first words which also opens up a subject of some difficulty. 
Tyndale, it will be observed, with all the other early versions 
except the Bishops', prefixes no connecting particle to the 
first words of verse 37. In the original the particle is IL Is 
this a case where the slight change of thought involved in 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSION 65 

this delicate use of the particle, and the transition from the 
acts of the gathered shipmen to the fact of their number, is 
really best expressed in English by the omission of any con- 
necting particle, or is it a case whe,re some English particle 
seems needed? Here again judgments will greatly vary. 
To the majority probably it would seem that a particle is 
needed, but that majority would be greatly divided whether 
the exact shade of thought was best conveyed by the loosely 
connecting " and," or the half-parenthetic and mainly transi- 
tional "now." The same question recurs in verse 39, at the 
beginning of which Tyndale and the versions prior to the 
Bishops' Bible leave the connecting particle untranslated. 
These are niceties of translation to which it may not be un- 
desirable in passing to direct the general reader's attention. 

In the last words of verse 40 the A. V. is a slight improve- 
ment on the earlier version, but both fail in marking that it 
was the particular shore, or rather beach, which they had al- 
ready observed.* The Bhemish Version has inserted the ar- 
ticle. The translation in the A. V. of Ka.TE~.ypv is admirable. 
All the other versions (except Rhem., u they went on to- 
ward") retain the less expressive rendering of Tyndale. Here 
again we have another instance of the watchfulness and care 
of the last revisers. 

In the next verse (verse 41) the change in regard to hi6a- 
Xavaog is not equally for the better. It tends rather to con- 

* In this verse the modern reviser would almost certainly introduce a 
change in the translation of dpre/jKov. The most probable rendering would 
seem to be "foresail," but the objection is that St. Luke in that case would 
have been more likely to have used the technical word doXojv. See, however, 
the elaborate arguments in the excellent dissertation "On the Ships of the 
Ancients" in Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul. The same objec- 
tion is urged against the supposition that it was some hinder (mizen) sail, 
there being a technical term, though perhaps not so well known as doXwv, 
viz., 67rt^po/ioc. Meyer notices that this sail in Italian is known by the tech- 
nical name " artimone," but himself refers the term to some upper sail 
(" Braamsegel," topsail) attached to the presumably yet standing mast. See 
Kommentar zur Apostelgesch., p. 455 (ed. 2), and the good notes on the whole 



66 



ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



fuse what St. Luke appears to specify, that the vessel was 
run on to a tongue of land lying below the surface, and con- 
nected with the shore by an isthmus, with some little depth 
of water on it ; hence the circumstances of verse 43 seq. The 
slight but necessary change in the translation of eXvero was 
taken from the Rhemish Version. To the same version is due 
the credit of marking in verse 43 that it is there the simpler 
klthai (" goe forth to land"), not as afterward hiaawdijpai. The 
A. V., however, having taken the hint, improves upon it. 

In the last verse, the insertion by Tyndale of the former 
verb makes the sense clearer ; Coverdale was the first to omit 
it, and is followed by the Bishops' Bible and our own ver- 
sion. At any rate, we can hardly here take a hint from the 
Rhemish — " and the rest, some they caried on bordes." Such 
a proceeding would certainly have been a little difficult in 
such a locality, and with some depth of water on the isthmus. 

The third passage which we may select is a very different 
Third passage, one > anc ^ so not unsuitable for testing the connec- 
2Thess.,ciiap.ii. tion between the versions. We take the second 
chapter of the second Epistle to the Thessalonians, in which 
the apostle specifies the signs and coming of Antichrist. 
Tyndale. 

2. We beseche you brethren by the 
commynge of oure lorde Jesu Christ, 
and in that we shall assemble vnto 
him, 2 that ye be not sodenly moved 
from youre mynde, and be not troub- 
led, nether by sprete, nether by wordes, 
nor yet by letter which shuld seme to 
come from vs, as the daye of Christ 
were at honde. 3 Let no man deceave 
you by eny meanes, for the lorde com- 
meth not, excepte there come a de- 
partynge fyrst, and that that synfull 
man be opened, the sonne of perdicion 
4 which is an adversarie, and is exalt- 



Auth. Version. 

2. Now we beseech you, brethren, 
by the coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and by our gathering together 
unto him, 2 That ye be not soon 
shaken in mind, or be troubled, nei- 
ther by spirit, nor by word, nor by let- 
ter as from us, as that the day of 
Christ is at hand. 3 Let no man de- , 
ceive you by any means ; for that day 
shall not come, except there come a 
falling away first, and that man of 
sin be revealed, the son of perdition ; 
* Who opposeth and exalteth himself 
above all that is called God, or that is 



ed above all that is called god, or that | worshipped ; so that he as God sitteth 
is worshipped : so that he shall sitt as I in the temple of God, showing him- 
God in temple of god, and shew him | self that he is God. 
silfe as god. ' 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF ATTTH. VERSION. 



67 



Tyndale. 

5 Eemember ye not, that when I 
was yet with you, I tolde you these 
thynges ? 6 And nowe ye knowe what 
with holdeth : even that he myght be 
vttered at his tyme. 7 For the mis- 
tery of that iniquitie doeth he all 
readie worke which onlie loketh, vn- 
till it be taken out of the waye. 8 And 
then shall that wicked be vttered, 
whom the lorde shall consume with 
the sprete of his mouth, and shall de- 
stroye with the apearaunce of his com- 
mynge, 9 even him whose commynge 
is by the workynge of Satan, with all 
lyinge power, signes and wonders : 
10 and in all deceavablenes of vnright- 
ewesnes, amonge them that perysshe : 
because they receaved not the (love) 
of the truth, that thay myght have 
bene saved. n And therfore god shall 
sende them stronge delusion, that they 
shuld beleve lyes : X2 that all they 
might be damned which beleved not 
the trueth but had pleasure in vnright- 
ewesnes. 

13 But we arebounde to geve thankes 
alwaye to god for you brethren be- 
loved of the lorde, for because that 
God hath from the begynnynge chosen 
you to salvacion, thorow santifyinge 
of the sprete, and thorowe belevynge 
the trueth: :4 wherunto he called 
you by oure gospell, to obtayne the 
glorye that commeth of oure. lorde 
Jesu Christ. 

15 Therfore brethren stonde fast 
and kepe the ordinannces which ye 
have learned : whether it were by our 
preachynge, or by pistle. 1 6 Oure lorde 
Jesu Christ hymsilfe, and God oure 
father which hath loved us and hath 
geven us everlastynge consolacion and 
good hope thorowe grace, 1 7 comforte 
youre hertes, and stablysshe you in all 
doctrine and good doynge. 



Auth. Version. 
5 Eemember ye not, that, when I 
was yet with you, I told you these 
things? 6 And now ye know what 
withholdeth, that he might be reveal- 
ed in his time. 7 Eor the mystery of 
iniquity doth already work : only he 
who now letteth will let, until he be 
taken out of the way. s And then 
shall that Wicked be revealed, whom 
the Lord shall consume with the spirit 
of his mouth, and shall destroy with 
the brightness of his coming : 9 Even 
him, whose coming is after the work- 
j ing of Satan with all power, and signs, 
j and lying wonders, 10 And with all 
i deceivableness of unrighteousness in 
\ them that perish ; because they re- 
ceived not the love of the truth, that 
they might be saved. n And for this 
cause God shall send them strong de- 
lusion, that they should believe a lie : 
, 12 That they all might be damned who 
believed not the truth, but had pleas- 
ure in unrighteousness. 

13 But we are bound to give thanks 
j alway to God for you, brethren, be- 
I loved of the Lord, because God hath 
I from the beginning chosen you to sal- 
j vation through sanctih* cation of the 

Spirit and belief of the truth: M Where- 
| unto he called you by our Gospel, to 

the obtaining of the glory of our Lord 

Jesus Christ. 

15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, 
and hold the traditions which ye have 
been taught, whether by word, or our 
epistle. * 6 Now our Lord Jesus Christ 
himself, and God, even our Father, 
which hath loved us, and hath given 
us everlasting consolation and good 
hope through grace, 17 Comfort your 
hearts, and stablish you in every good 
word and work. 



68 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

In the first verse the A. V. adopts and improves upon the 

Comments, translation of the Bishops' Bible, " our assem- 
bling unto him," and so rightly avoids a very awkward peri- 
phrasis. 

In the second verse the older version is certainly the 
more accurate in its translation of and too vooq ("from youre 
mynde"), but in what follows it is much improved upon, both 
in the Bishops' and the A. V. 

The change in verse 3 to " falling away" is due to the Bish- 
ops', and is a clear improvement, but the definite article ought 
not to have been overlooked ; it was the definite falling away 
which was to precede the coming. In the conclusion of the 
verse we owe the vigorous translation, " the man of sin," to 
the usually smoother Coverdale. The reading, it may be ob- 
served, is somewhat doubtful, as the two most ancient manu- 
scripts (the Vatican and Sinaitic) read avofxiac. This, how- 
ever, would not affect the principle of the translation, but 
only the change from " sin" to " lawlessness." 

In verse 4 there are some small changes, and all for the 
better, part due to Bishops', part to the A. V. 

In verse V we find that Tyndale and most of the earlier 
versions were induced to emphasize the article rfjg avoiiiac: 
it need scarcely be said that it appears only on that well- 
known principle that if, of two nouns in regimen, the first has 
the article, the second will also have it without being thereby 
made peculiarly definite. In the latter portion of the verse, 
the Genevan Version has the merit of having first brought 
out the correct meaning. 

In verse 8 the translation of Bishops' followed by A. V. is 
perhaps questionable. It is doubtful whether any thing more 
is meant than that " manifestation" and final " appearance" 
of the Lord, which seems always sjDecially marked by the 

word kintyavEia. 

In verse 9 it may also be doubted whether, in point of ac- 
tual structure, Tyndale is not right, and whether the gen. 
■^evIovq is not to be associated with all the three substantives, 



LEADIXG CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSION. qq 



55 « 
5 



not, as in A. V., only with the last one: "power, 
and " wonders" were all marked by the same principle. 

In verse 11a change is made from the plural " lies" to the 
singular, but all the versions alike omit the article. In the 
next verse two very small changes appear, both, however, 
serving to exhibit that incessant care which, as we have al- 
ready seen, so marks the Authorized Version ; the earlier ver- 
sions preserving Tyndale's words as they stand. 

The same remark applies to verse 13, where there are also 
two or three small changes, one, however, of which is of some 
little importance, viz., the omission in the A. Y. of the prepo- 
sition (" thorowe") in accordance with the Greek. This ex- 
actness is unfortunately not always observed in our version, 
but in any future revision it is to be hoped that it would be 
systematically maintained; several passages being affected 
by the principle even in their doctrinal aspects.* It is a 
matter of common sense that if the two substantives have 
only one preposition, the writer instinctively regards the sub- 
jects or ideas expressed by the two substantives as so far al- 
lied that they may suitably stand under the vinculum of the 
single preposition. 

The next verse (verse 14) presents an interesting differ- 

* We may take a single but important instance. In John iii. , 5, the words 
lav fir) Tig ytvvndy 1% vSaroc. /cat Uvevfiaroc are translated, not only in the 
A. V., but in all the versions, "Except a man be born of water and of the 
Spirit" — the preposition being inserted before the second substantive, though 
not so inserted in the Greek. Now it can hardly be doubted, when we come 
closely to reason on the passage, that this insertion of the preposition tends 
to refer the ykvvncnc. to two media or mediating agencies which need not by 
any means be regarded as combined. This, however, the Greek does not im- 
ply. Nay, the very absence of the preposition, when it might have been so 
easily inserted, suggests the contrary deduction — the rule of Winer being un- 
doubtedly correct, that the preposition "is repeated when the nouns denote 
objects which are to be taken by themselves as independent, and not repeated 
when they reduce themselves to a single main idea, or (if they are proper 
names) to one common class:" contrast Luke xxiv., 27; John xx., 2 (on 
which Bengel bases an actual deduction — "non una fuisse utrumque disci- 
pulum"), and 1 Thess. i., 5, with John iv., 23, Luke xxi., 26, and the present 
passage. See, on this subject, Winer, Grammar of the N. T., § 50, p. 522 (ed. 
Moulton), and the ample list of examples there specified. 



70 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

ence. Here Tyndale gives a direct interpretation : he re- 
gards the genitive tov Kvpiov k.t.X. as a genitive of the source, 
and marks it distinctly in translation. In this view he is 
followed by Taverner, and, as far as we remember, Taverner 
alone. Coverdale's and all the remaining versions adopt the 
simple translation, and so rightly avoid interpretation. Christ 
is here obviously represented, in harmony with the whole 
tenor of the passage, and, indeed, the analogy of Scripture, 
as the possessor of the glory rather than the source of it.* 

The beginning of verse 15 brings out a polemical differ- 
ence. The A. Y., with really considerable boldness, here fol- 
lows the Rhemish Version in opposition to all the earlier ver- 
sions, and gives to 7rapac)o<7ae its not unusual sense of " tradi- 
tions." Exegetical considerations, however, make it very 
doubtful whether the Genevan " instructions" is not more in 
coincidence with the general tenor of the passage and Epis- 
tle. 

•We may close the comparison of the two versions by no- 
ticing one important form of words, 6 Qeog teal 7ran)jo »/juaiv, 
which, as it will be observed, is differently translated in the 
two versions, Tyndale dropping the rai in translation, the A. 
V., on the contrary, rather giving it emphasis. There is yet 
a third translation possible, which Ave first find in the Bish- 
ops' Bible — " God and our Father ;" which of these is to be 
preferred? Perhaps the last, as implying that we regard 

* There is no case to which more attention ought to be given in the N. T. 
than to the genitive. There are at least five or six different uses which should 
be carefully studied, as doctrinal deductions of considerable importance will 
be often found to depend on the view taken. We have, for instance, a gen. 
of possession as here ; of origin (Col. ii. , 8) ; of originating cause (Col. i. , 23 ; 
1 Thess. i., G) ; of characterizing quality (Gal. v., 1) ; of material (Phil.iii., 
21) ; of contents (1 Thess. ii., 5) ; of opposition (Eph. vi., 14) ; of point of 
view (Phil. ii. , 30) ; and the general divisions of the gen. subjecti and objecti, 
the due distinction between which always tests the accuracy of thought and 
perspicacity of the interpreter. The reader who desires to pursue this sub- 
ject will find in the notes on the above passages in the Commentaries of the 
writer of this note further references and comments. In the otherwise ex- 
cellent Grammar of Winer the cases (and especially the gen. ) are not treated 
with the clearness which marks other parts of the work. 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSION. 71 

the holy words " God and Father"* as a solemn title in which 
Godhood and Fatherhood were simultaneously recognized in 
the devout mind of the believer. The A. V. is very incon- 
stant in its translation of these words, and would have here 
to be watched closely in any new revision. The passage con- 
cludes with a clearly necessary correction on the part of the 
A. V., " good word and work," though in this our version was 
only following, as to the position of the epithet, the earlier 
versions of Cranmer and of the Bishops. 

After the above comparisons really little remains to be 
said, such passages ashave just been chosen serving to bring 
out practically the actual facts of the case. In the first place, 
we see clearly that our own version is and remains substan- 
tially that of Tyndale. All that makes it what it essentially 
is, its language, tone, rhythm, vigor, and breadth, are due to 
this first devoted translator from the original. At the same 
time, and in the second place, we have observed manifold 
small changes, their number greatly increasing as the diffi- 
culties of the passage increase, or as we pass from narrative 
to argument. How and whence these changes came in is the 
only question that remains to be answered. This may be 
done shortly, and without entering far into the province of 
the history of the English Bible. 

Even from the passing comments that have been made, it 
coverdaie's Ver- would have become clear to the general reader 
S10n * that each succeeding version contributed some- 

thing by way of correction and change to the labors of Tyn- 
dale. Much is due to Coverdale, who of late, we think, has 
been unduly depreciated. It may be that he was a second- 
rate man compared with Tyndale ; it may be, too, that his 

* On this solemn form of words see the notes on Gal. i., 5, where the sub- 
ject is somewhat fully discussed. Whichever view be taken, there certainly 
ought to be uniformity in translation. This formula, as translated in the A. 
V., supplies one of the many proofs of the undesirableness of the arrangement 
of different companies of translators or revisers for different portions of Scrip- 
ture. All portions of the N. T. ought to be gone over together by the same 
body of revisers. 



72 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

knowledge of the original languages was at first very mod- 
erate ; it may be, also, that he was appointed to his work 
rather than inwardly called to it, as was the case of his friend. 
But he certainly labored faithfully and in many respects suc- 
cessfully. He was also thoroughly loyal to Tyndale; he nev- 
er sought to supersede the early version, but rather by the 
aid of others to supply such contributions, by way of addi- 
tion and correction, as God enabled him to make to a great 
and holy cause. At the same time, this also seems clear that 
Coverdale's Version can hardly be considered in the line of 
direct descent from Tyndale to the Authorized Version. 
Though less remote than Taverner's, Coverdale's Version can 
scarcely be considered as much more than collaterally related 
to our present English Bible. The line was clearly continued 
by Matthew, or, to drop the nom deplume, the martyr John 
Rogers. In this edition we have little more, in regard of the 
New Testament, than Tyndale's standard edition of 1534, oc- 
casionally corrected by Tyndale's own edition of 1535 and the 
edition of Coverdale of the same year. Matthew's Bible ap- 
peared in 1537, and was so far approved by authority that 
the circulation of it was sanctioned by the king. Thus won- 
derfully and mysteriously was Tyndale's dying prayer of a 
few months before, " Lord, ope the King of England's eyes," 
heard and answered. The work of one martyr, edited by one 
Avho afterward wore the same mystic crown, was the first Au- 
thorized Version of the Church of England.* 

The line is continued by the Great Bible, or Cranmer's 

* The estimate of Coverdale's share in the great work of Bible-translation 
is extremely well stated in the Historical Account prefixed to Bagster, Hex- 
apla, p. 71 seq. From this account it would seem that Coverdale in no way 
wished even to seem to interfere with Tyndale's labors ; that Tyndale's New 
Testament was certainly one of the authorities he used ; that his Bible was 
permitted by the king to be used ; and that the king intended to have formal- 
ly authorized it, but that the intention was never actually carried out. It is 
therefore hardly correct to call it, as has been called in a recent essay, " The 
first authorized version." See Quarterly Review for April, 1870, p. 319. 
This honor certainly belongs to Matthew's Bible. See Historical Account, 
p. 78. 



LEADING CHAR A CTERISTICS OF A UTH. VERSION. 7 3 

Bible, which was published three years later. The arch- 
The Great bishop, as we know from Fox's Manuscript pre- 
Bibie. served by Strype,* began the work by taking " an 

old English translation" of the New Testament — almost cer- 
tainly Tyndale's — which he divided into eight or nine parts, 
and gave, copied out " at large in a paper book," to his coad- 
jutors. This recension, it can hardly be doubted, was the 
New Testament of the Great Bible, which, as inspection clear- 
ly shows, was a revised edition of Tyndale. Among the arch- 
bishop's coadjutors were probably Tonstall,' Bishop of Dur- 
ham, and Heath, Bishop of Rochester, who are subsequently 
specified in the title-page of the edition of 1541 as "overseers 
and perusers" of the work ; Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, 
who appears to have been the reviser of the Gospels of St. 
Luke and St. John; Stokesley, Bishop of London, to whom 
the Acts of the Apostles were assigned, and four or five oth- 
ers. Coverdale was very properly chosen as the corrector 
of the press and practical editor, but there does not seem rea- 
son for thinking that he had much, if, indeed, any thing to 
do with the actual work of revision. This interesting and 
important version maintained its ground during the whole 
of the remainder of Henry's reign, and — after the short in- 
terval of Mary's reign — during the first ten years of the reign 
of Elizabeth, until at length it was superseded by the Bish- 
ops' Bible in 1568. It thus was the Authorized Version of 
the Holy Scriptures for nearly a generation, and still main- 
tains some place in our services (in the Prayer-book version 
of the Psalms, and in the sentences of Scripture in the Com- 
munion Service) unto this very day. 

Our attention must now be turned to the Genevan Version, 

The Genevan which, though collaterally related to our present 

Version. version, and not in the line of what may be called 

authorized descent, nevertheless has been the source from 

which many corrections have been introduced. The New 

* See Strype, Cranmer, book L, ch. viii., vol. i., p. 48 (Oxford, 1812), and 
the full notice in Historical Account, p. 80. 

Kk 



74 ELLICOTT ON BE VISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Testament was published first under the superintendence of 
William Whittingham, afterward Dean of Durham, in the 
year 1557, at Geneva, and afterward, with many alterations, 
in 1560, when the whole Bible was published. Among those 
who took part in the whole work was the veteran Coverdale, 
Thomas Sampson, afterward Dean of Christchurch, Thomas 
Cole, afterward Archdeacon of Essex, Christopher Goodman, 
and others. The work was done well, though by no means 
without indications, in the New Testament especially, of bias 
and doctrinal prejudices. The greater part of the changes 
in the New Testament are referable to the work of a good 
interpreter, though a rash and inexperienced critic — the ver- 
sion and notes ofBeza; but there are throughout clear signs 
that great care and consideration were shown in the adop- 
tion of these changes, and that, on the whole, the labor was 
well bestowed. This version, as is well known, was very pop- 
ular, and maintained its ground against the Bishops' Bible, 
and, for some years, even against our present version. It 
was the household, though not the authorized, version of the 
Scriptures for fully two generations. 

This version deserves our attention in three respects : first, 
as having introduced the use of italics to supplement and 
carry on the sense, and also, though less happily, the separa- 
tion into verses ; secondly, as showing some desire on the 
part of the revisers to follow as critically correct a text as 
their limited knowledge and appliances, and (it might be add- 
ed) their deference to Beza's authority, permitted them to 
recognize; thirdly, as being the first version which had been 
made in co-operative union. All the preceding versions had 
been the work, either wholly or in their separate parts, of in- 
dividuals. In this version we had several earnest and com- 
petently learned men working together, and, as might be ex- 
pected, finally producing a work which, whatever may be its 
faults and prejudices, certainly presents an aspect of consid- 
erable unity and harmony in its general execution. This is 
a hint which is not now without its value and significance. 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSION. 75 

As we have already said, it stands only in a collateral rela- 
tion to our own version, but it has supplied a fairly large con- 
tingent of corrections. 

What we have termed the authorized line of descent was 
The Biahops' continued by the Bishops' Bible, from which our 
Blble - own version is legitimately derived, the general 

and leading instruction being given to the revisers of 1611 
to introduce " as few alterations as may be" in the then cur- 
rent version. On this version a few remarks may be made 
as to structure and general characteristics. 

It appears to have been undertaken from two different rea- 
sons : first, honest dissatisfaction with Cranmer's Bible as ex- 
pressed by distinguished scholars, such as Lawrence, and men 
of influence such as Sandys, then Bishop of Worcester; sec- 
ondly, from the fear of the rapidly increasing influence and 
circulation of the Genevan Version. These two causes in- 
duced Archbishop Parker to call in the aid of eight of his 
suffragans and of other learned men of the day, and with 
them to bring out a thoroughly revised version based on that 
of Cranmer. The work was completed in 1568. Of the New 
Testament, the Gospels were revised by Cox, Bishop of Ely, 
the Romans by Guest, Bishop of Rochester, and the First 
Epistle to the Corinthians by Goodman, Dean of Westmin- 
ster. No clew is afforded to the revisers of the remaining 
books. The work was done creditably though unequally, 
but it nowhere appears to have been the result of actual con- 
ference and locally united labor. Though confessedly show- 
ing a much more thorough revision of existing materials than 
seems to have been the case with its predecessor, the Great 
Bible, though Parker's recension was much more complete 
than Cranmer's, yet still it had all the faults and defects 
which were almost necessarily due to its mode of construc- 
tion, and it certainly never succeeded in thoroughly com- 
manding the respect of scholars or in securing the sympathies 
of the people. So it maintained its position during the forty- 
three years of its authorized existence more by external au- 



76 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

thority than by any special merits of its own. It probably 
remained in many churches several years after the present 
version, and, as we know from extant sermons, still contin- 
ued in many cases to be the source of the words of the preach- 
er's text,* but its real hold on the Church and the nation was 
never strong, and was soon finally loosened by the increased 
recognition of the real excellence of the present Authorized 
Version. 

We have now concluded our genealogy of our present ver- 
sion, and established, we hope, both the correctness of the 
pedigree already specified, and this important fact — that our 
English Testament of the present day, after all its changes, 
revisions, and remodelings, is still truly and substantially the 
venerable version of Tyndale the Martyr. God give us wis- 
dom ever to conduct our consultations in reference to the re- 
vision of such a version with a sensitive remembrance of the 
true source of our present noble inheritance. On its pages 
are the enduring traces of the labors of a noble and devoted 
life, and the seal with which it is sealed is the seal of blood. 

We *nay now turn to the- second question of the present 
Principles of our chapter, and consider shortly the principles 
present version. wn j c | 1 h ave b een followed in the construction 
of our present version. These have been already in some 
degree touched upon in the preceding pages, but may now 
be more distinctly specified. We will first notice the lead- 
ing principles, and then those general instructions that were 
prescribed for the carrying out of the work which necessarily 
involve matters of detail. 

* Perhaps a stronger instance could hardly be selected than that of the 
texts to the Sermons of Bp. Andrewes, preached after 1611, which are taken 
from the Bishops' Bible. And yet Andrewes was one of the revisers of that 
very version, and, as chairman of the first of the two companies that sat at 
Westminster, and a well-known scholar, might naturally be supposed likely 
to have adopted the new version, especially as some of the sermons were 
preached as late as ten years after its appearance. The slow progress of the 
Auth. Version, and the difficulties with which it had to contend in circula- 
tion, have been shortly noticed by Disraeli, Curiosities of Literature (Series 
2), vol. hi., p. 322. 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSION. 77 

The leading principles were thoroughly sound, and in per- 
First; division ^ ect harmony with the past history of the En- 
of labor. glish Version. These were, first, a division of 

labor. Separate portions of the Holy Scriptures were assign- 
ed to different companies of scholars, and the work done by 
each company was reviewed by all the other companies, and 
finally passed under the Committee of Revision. As there 
were in all six companies, two at Westminster appointed by 
the king (to whom the credit of the plan is justly due), two 
at Oxford nominated by the University, and two at Cam- 
bridge similarly nominated, and as the numbers in each com- 
pany varied from seven to ten, it has been computed that no 
part of the work would have been examined less than four- 
teen times, and some parts as many as seventeen.* With 
this principle of division of labor there was thus combined 
the principle of mutual revision of the work done. Here we 
observe a great improvement over the plans, as far as we 
know them, which were followed in the earlier revisions. In 
Cranmer's and Parker's recensions the work was similarly 
broken up into parts, but each part was assigned merely to 
an individual ; and no arrangement seems to have been made 
in either case for any review by the rest of the work done 
by the individual, nor was there any adjustment by which 
united conference was provided for. If we may institute a 
rough comparison between the revisions, we may perhaps 

* See Historical Account (Bagster), p. 153. Though the work was thus 
done with extreme care and subjected to repeated scrutiny, still the system 
of companies of translators rather than of one body, or rather two bodies, the 
one for the Old and the other for the New Testament, each body doing their 
whole work in union, has certainly left its unfavorable traces on our present 
version. The New Testament was divided between two companies — one of 
eight persons, of which Dr. Ravis, Dean of Christchurch, and subsequently 
Bishop of Gloucester and of London, was president, and the other of eight 
persons, over whom Dr. Barlow, Bishop of Rochester and subsequently Bish- 
op of London, presided. The former sat at Oxford, and took the Gospels, 
Acts, and Revelation ; the latter took the Epistles, and sat at Westminster. 
Had these fifteen men sat regularly together at the same place, the revision 
of the New Testament would have been better in itself, and (what is of im- 
portance) more evenly executed. 



78 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

rightly say that the two earlier revisions (at any rate of the 
New Testament) were due chiefly to the action and influence 
of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the time being,* and 
that the laborers in the work were chiefly bishops ; that the 
last revision was due chiefly to the influence of the sovereign, 
and that the laborers were in the greater part nominated by 
the Universities. The first two revisions were thus archie- 
piscopal and episcopal, the last royal and academic. If there 
is yet to be another revision, it seems likely that a third and 
different agency will direct and carry out the work of the fu- 
ture, and that at length the Convocation of the Church of En- 
gland, sustained by the aid and sympathies of the nation, will 
come forward as the faithful reviser of the national version of 
the Book of Life. Up to the present time, it must be said, 
Convocation has failed in one of its great duties as a repre- 
sentative, imperfect it may be, but still a representative, of 
the local Church in her holy office as guardian of the archives 
of the Truth. Up to the present time Convocation has been 
found wanting ;f in the future there seems reason to hope 

* This, of course, is not to be understood exclusively, Cromwell having had 
so great a hand in the proceedings prior to the publication of the Great Bible. 
From the beginning, however, it seems correct to ascribe to Cranmer, espe- 
cially in reference to the New Testament, the foremost place in the move- 
ment. The division of work above alluded to as marked out by Cranmer, 
and the recension which appears to have resulted from it, and which ultimate- 
ly appears to have formed the New Testament of the Great Bible, seem to 
justify the reference, at any rate of the N. T. , to the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. See the Printed Account (Bagster), p. 83. 

t Convocation has more than once moved in the subject, but never with 
heartiness or success. Its first indication of movement was in that very crit- 
ical period in the history of the English Bible which immediately followed the 
publication of Tyndale's Version of 1534, and Was just prior to the appear- 
ance of Coverdale's. Convocation then intimated an intention of taking up 
the work of a new translation. As, however, it was soon seen by Cromwell 
that the carrying out of this intention would be delayed almost indefinitely, 
Coverdale was appointed to the work, and the intention of Convocation fell 
through. Again, at another important period, after the publication of the 
Great Bible, when there was a clear desire for a new revision, Convocation 
undertook to form a plan, but the preparations were really so very tiresome 
and hopeless (see Fuller, Church History, book v., 4, p. 237 seq., Lond., 1655 ; 
Joyce, Sacred Synods, chap, xi., p. 406) that the work was transferred to the 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSION. 79 

that Convocation will bear its rightful part in the holy and 
responsible work. 

But, to return to the revision of 1611, the first of the 
leading principles was, as we have seen, thoroughly sound. 
Where it might have been improved, and where probably it 
would be improved in any future attempt, would be in a 
more distinct separation between the revisers of the versions 
of the Old and of the New Testament. Knowledge has now 
so widely increased, and the tendency to specialty in knowl- 
edge is now so distinct a characteristic of our present times, 
that it would now be very undesirable for the work of the 
reviser of any part of the version of the Old Testament to be 
subjected to the correcting eye of a reviser connected. with 
the New Testament. The two companies must now work 
separately, but their work might beneficially, as in the time 
of King James, be laid before a small Committee of Revision. 
It would, of course, also be necessary that both companies, 
before addressing themselves to their separate work, should 
come to a thorough agreement on all details as regards the 
nature and amount of revision, and the general character of 
the language to be used, where a change of rendering might 
be found necessary. This last matter, as we have already 
seen, is one of considerable importance, and one on which the 
general acceptance of the work would be found very greatly 
to depend. The first leading principle, then, of the last re- 
vision is to be thoroughly approved of, and the manner in 
which it was carried out may very profitably be borne well 
in mind ; but, at the present time, modifications would cer- 
tainly be desirable, not only in what has been already speci- 
fied, but even in the numbers employed and the mode of 
meeting. We should do the work better if the number (for 
the O. T.) were less, and especially if the work of revision 
were carried on round a common table. There would then 
be a unity in the whole, and a harmony in the general tone 

Universities, and when there, as might be supposed, never allowed to be pro- 
ceeded with. See, for further details, Historical A ccount, p. 105 seq. 



80 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

of the corrections which, it must be frankly said, is certainly 

often wanting in our Authorized Version. 

The second leading principle was one which can not be too 
Secondly; as strongly commended — to introduce as few al- 

i'ew changes . . . 

as possible. terations as it may be into the current version. 
On the precise nature and amount of the alterations that 
may from time to time be considered requisite, there will be 
varying opinions ; but it certainly was a wise as well as a 
charitable principle to make as little alteration as possible in 
a version which had been bound up with the devotional feel- 
ings of the people, at least as far as the hearing of the ear 
went. It was wise, too, to follow that principle of minimum 
alteration which had been instinctively followed from the 
edition of Matthew down to the time of the last revision. 
And what was deemed wise and charitable then, would be 
obviously much more so now, when the necessity for altera- 
tion has become diminished by successive revisions, and when 
that which is to be revised has for more than 250 years, un- 
like the Bishops' Bible, been valued in the closet, the house- 
hold, and the Church with equal affection and veneration. 

These two principles of combined labor and minimized al- 
teration are the two that may be considered the leading prin- 
ciples of the revision of 1611. For the most part they seem 
to have been followed out faithfully and persistently. 

Of the minor principles we may notice three, as being of 
Minor princi- some importance in forming a right estimate of 
ple8# the Authorized Version, and also as being wor- 

thy of consideration in reference to any future revision. 
The first of these relates to the authorities to which the 
Authorities to revisers were to have recourse when they hap- 
be consulted. p ene( j to agree b ett er with the original than the 
Bishops' Bible. These are specified in the instructions as the 
versions of Tyndale, Coverdale, Matthew, Whitchurch (i. e., 
Cranmer — Whitchurch and Grafton having been the print- 
ers), and the Genevan Version. The rule was good, but it 
may be said generally that it was not very carefully follow- 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSION gl 

ed, except perhaps in the case of the Genevan Version. Had 
they followed it more closely they would have removed sev- 
eral errors which they left remaining,* and have avoided 
some which they introduced. The authorities on which the 
revisers seem mainly to have relied are Beza's Latin Version 
and notes, the Genevan, and the Rhemish Version. To this 
last version, though it was not in the list of their authorities, 
they were certainly more than occasionally indebted, and 
commonly with advantage ; as the Rhemish, with all its 
faults and asperities, was a translation of a really good ver- 
sion, and, at any rate, is very affluent in its vocabulary, and 
very useful in converting Latin words into English service.f 
While, then, they judiciously used existing material, and, as 
we know from Selden and from their own preface, did not 
neglect versions in other and modern languages, it still does 
seem to be a fact that they did not very carefully attend to 
the versions that were specified ; inspection seeming to cor- 
roborate the remark that when they made an alteration in 
the Bishops' Bible they rarely went back to an earlier version. 
A second principle which they tell us in the preface they 
variation in the na ^ considered themselves at liberty to follow 
renderings. wag t jj a t Q f var yj n g the translations of the same 
Greek word, even when the sense might seem to be identical. 
Now in this they were certainly following precedent, as in 
Coverdale's Bible especially, and, indeed, in all the earlier 
versions, there is a well-defined tendency to use synonyms. 
But it was carried much too far. There are passages in the 
Synoptical Gospels in which several continuous words, and 

* To name one out of several instances of some degree of importance, 
we may notice the translation of Ttoi\ivi) in John x., 16. Our own version 
retains the incorrect translation "fold" which had come in with the Great 
Bihle. Had the revisers turned to Tyndale they could hardly have failed to 
have reverted to his correct translation "flock." They would thus not only 
have correctly maintained the lexical distinction between iroinvn and the pre- 
ceding av\t), but also have precluded an erroneous doctrinal deduction which 
it is obvious may be made, and has often been made, from the passage. 

t See Westcott, History of the English Bible, p. 328. 



82 ELLICOTT ON ME VISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

even sentences, identical in the Greek, are translated with 
needless diversity;* and there are passages of grave doc- 
trinal import, such, for example, as Matt, xxv., 46, in which 
the revisers ought certainly to have corrected the earlier ver- 
sions, and to have preserved the same translation of the word 
in both classes. No doubt there are many passages in which 
the tenor of the context does really prescribe a variation 
from the meaning usually assigned, and where the truest 
translation is not that which is the most mechanically con- 
sistent with some apparently similar use of the same words ; 
but our last translators, like their predecessors, seem certain- 
ly to have used a liberty which occasionally degenerated into 
license, and which the reviser of our own day would have to 
subject to very close and watchful consideration. 

The remaining principle which we may notice is embodied 
Retention of the in the instruction which prescribes the retention 

ecclesiastical ,>-,-,t *,•-•,-, n , 

words. oi the old ecclesiastical words, as, lor example, 

"Church" rather than " congregation ;" "baptism,"not u wash- 
ing." This principle has been as fairly followed as could 
have been expected in the case of so loose a definition as "ec- 
clesiastical ;" but several instances (e. g., " overseers," Acts 
xx., 28) have been specified in which the rule has not been 
observed, and in which also there is some reason to fear that 
polemical considerations were allowed to intrude. The change 
in 1 Cor. xiii., 1 seq., of the "love" of the older versions to 
" charity" may have arisen from a supposed application of 

* A good paper on this subject by Dean Alford, Avith many examples, will 
be found in the Contemporary Review for 1868, vol. viii., p. 322 seq. Diver- 
sity of rendering within proper bounds is, however, often necessary for a truly 
faithful and idiomatic translation. The converse principle, formally enunci- 
ated by Newcome, and even very recently put forward in Convocation (see 
Guardian for May 11, p. 550), that the same word in the original ought al- 
ways to be translated by the same word in English, certainly can not always 
be maintained. The word in the original is often more inclusive in its mean- 
ing than the English word, and the context so different, that a version con- 
structed on a rigid observance of such a principle would frequently be found 
unreadable, and to general ears sometimes almost unintelligible. See some 
comments on this in the Westminster Review for Jan., 1857, vol. xi., p. 143. 



LEADING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTH. VERSION. 83 

the principle, but in this particular case, at any rate, we shall 
probably all sincerely wish that no such application had been 
made. This principle would require very careful considera- 
tion in any future revision. It appears, indeed, to have been 
the cause of some little solicitude at the time, as there are 
traces of a desire on the part of the king and others to have 
a small overlooking council of divines specially to see that 
this and a similar rule were attended to.* In the revision 
of the future, however, there would probably be less diffi- 
culty. Common consent has now associated a certain trans- 
lation with certain doctrinal and ecclesiastical words. This 
translation would of course be maintained ; care only would 
be necessary to see that it was maintained consistently, dog- 
matical or other considerations notwithstanding. 

One minor instruction yet remains to be noticed, viz., that 
Division of tne division of the chapters was " to be altered 
the chapters. e j t h ei . n0 ^ a t all, or as little as may be, if neces- 
sity so require." Here at least w T e may express the hope that 
the otherwise safe principle of a minimum of alteration will 
be observed in any future revision. Convenience would seem 
to suggest that the numbering, though not the mode of print- 
ing the verses, might still be maintained, but the whole sub- 
ject of changing the present division into chapters, especial- 
ly in the New Testament, will, we hope, be thoroughly con- 
sidered. f The recent recommendations of the Ritual Com- 

* See Historical Account (Bagster), p. 153. Some anxiety has been mani- 
fested on this subject in recent newspaper letters, but without any reason. It 
has been feared that Nonconformists would demand changes in such words as 
" Church" and "baptize. " We venture to say for them that no fear need be 
entertained on such a subject. The Baptist scholar, for instance, would nev- 
er press for a new translation of /3a7rrt£w as a Baptist — " baptize" having to 
him and his co-religionists a meaning as definite as it has to us, and being ac- 
cepted accordingly. All he would press for would be, as a scholar, that where 
the context permitted, uniformity of translation should be maintained in this 
and all other words of importance, ecclesiastical or otherwise. 

t Attention may here rightly be called to the two forms of a Paragraph 
Bible published by the Beligious Tract Society. The divisions adopted are 
evidently the result of much care and consideration, and will commonly be 
found to commend themselves to the reader. An article of some interest on 



84 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

mission in reference to the Lectionary will probably, if they 
become law, tend at once to introduce some other change, 
and perhaps may supply the general outline for a remodel- 
ing of the present divisions. It is well known to scholars 
that in the New Testament we have an admirable system of 
sections in some of the older manuscripts, especially in the 
Vatican Manuscript. These, of course, would have to be 
carefully reviewed, but it is probable that they might be 
found too short for general adoption, and that some division 
like that of the revised Lectionary might, on the whole, be 
most available. 

"We have now fairly concluded our lengthened survey of 
the leading characteristics of the Authorized Version, and the 
interesting relations in which it stands to the versions that 
have preceded it. We have seen, and, it is to be hoped, ap- 
preciated, the wise and leading principle of minimized altera- 
tion and guarded change that has prevailed from the very 
first, amid all the varying circumstances of civil and ecclesi- 
astical history.* That this principle may be faithfully main- 
tained in any future revision must be the hope and prayer of 
every earnest Englishman, and that it will be maintained Ave 
are as fully persuaded as we are of the perpetual presence of 
the Lord in our mother Church. 

With this feeling, and with a loyal adherence to the lead- 
ing principles that have now been specified, we may at once 
pass onward to the difficulties which the succeeding chapter 
will present, and consider, generally and popularly, what 
would seem to be the limits to which revision should be 
carefully confined. 

Paragraph Bibles will be found in the Edinburg Review for Oct., 1855, vol. 
cii., p. 419 seq. 

* Even in the troublous times which preceded the Restoration the subject 
of revision was not entirely overlooked. It is noticed by Prof. Plumptre that 
the question was brought before the Grand Committee of Religion in the 
House of Commons in Jan., 1656, and referred to a sub-committee, which, 
however, never seems to have reported. See Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, 
vol. iii.,p. 1678. 



NATURE AND LIMITS OF REVISION 85 



CHAPTER IV. 

NATURE AND LIMITS OF REVISION. 

We have now before us a difficult portion of the subject, 
Different opin- and one on which some preliminary considera- 

ions as to extent . mi ... 

of revision. tion is especially necessary. That a revision is 
desirable would seem to be the opinion of the majority of 
thoughtful and unprejudiced persons, but how far that revi- 
sion should extend is a matter in which we observe great di- 
versity of sentiment. In the minds of some, revision means 
only sober and guarded change, there, and there only, where 
truth and faithfulness positively require it. In the minds of 
others it is simply synonymous with rashness and innova- 
tion : our venerable version is to be disfigured and Frenchi- 
fied ; our familiar religious words are to be altered ; all that 
is dear to the simple and devout believer is to be cleared 
away by modern criticism or marred by inconsiderate change. 

That writers and thinkers of this latter class show plainly 
that they know very little of the history of the English Bi- 
ble, and very inadequately estimate the deep conservatism in 
the English mind in regard of the one Book, is perfectly evi- 
dent ; but that they obtain a sort of hearing is also clear, and 
that they tend to import prejudice and bias into the whole 
subject is unfortunately clearer still. 

With such writers and thinkers it is impossible to argue. 
Antecedent prejudice renders them commonly impervious to 
the force of fair considerations, and leaves them only in the 
attitude of half-angry opposition. Such opponents we can 
not hope to conciliate ; but there are many, very many, deep- 
ly interested in the subject, who do confessedly feel great 
anxiety as to the degree of revision to which a nineteenth 
century might advance. Even considerations, such as those 



86 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

of the preceding chapter, drawn from the history of former 
revisions, fail to satisfy ; as the not unreasonable fear is ever 
ready to show itself, that this principle of least possible alter- 
ation, which prevailed when revision followed revision at no 
lengthened interval, might be much endangered now from 
the simple fact that more than two hundred and fifty years 
have come and gone since the date of the last, and that the 
very lapse of time and the changes of language and expres- 
sion necessarily due to it must, by the very nature of the 
case, seriously affect the question. 

Such anticipations are not unnatural ; such implied objec- 
tions are perfectly fair and reasonable ; but the answer seems 
conclusive — that the version we are considering has really 
fixed, to a great degree, the standard of our general as well 
as of our theological language, and that the English Bible is 
really our first English classic, as well as the Book of Life 
and Truth. It may be added, too, that, in a literary point of 
view, the whole question of language is in a far better state 
than it was a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago.* 
The wretched attempts at revision in the past century, if com- 
pared even with the worst and most pretentious efforts of 
the present century, will show very convincingly that the ar- 
gument derived from the long interval has no real weight, 
and that no revision in the present day could hope to meet 
with an hour's acceptance if it failed to preserve the tone, 
rhythm, and diction of the present Authorized Version. f 

* See Abp. Trench On the Auth. Version of the New Test., p. 25, where 
some specimens are given of the unhappy revisions of the eighteenth century. 
The remarks in the work just referred to on " the English of our Version" 
(chap, ii.) are especially deserving of attention. 

f Nothing is more satisfactory at the present time than the evident feel- 
ings of veneration for our Authorized Version, and the very generally-felt 
desire for as little change as possible. In a recent leading article on this 
subject in the Times of May 6 the writer very properly presses on the revisers 
a salutary caution — "that it should be their aim not to make as many, but 
to make as few, alterations as possible ;" and justly remarks that " it will oft- 
en be much better to sacrifice a point of strict grammatical accuracy than to 
jar the ear and lose the sympathy of readers. " 



NATURE AND LIMITS OF REVISION ' 87 

We may dismiss, then, this class of objections and object- 
Extent of revi- ors, and now turn to the really difficult question 

sion considered . , 7 .. 

m detail. which the present chapter places before us — To 

what extent is revision to be carried ? On what principles 
are alterations to be introduced, and how far is exact scholar- 
ship to be allowed to modify when the case is not one of ac- 
tual error? Unless some answer is attempted to primary 
questions such as these, revision will be a leap in the dark. 
It will be either so occasional and superficial that the usual 
argumentum inertice — viz., that if there is to be so little 
change, it is really not desirable to disturb the minds of de- 
vout persons by touching the Book at all — will certainly con- 
sign the work, when done, to the oblivion that fortunately has 
been the fate of so many revisions; or, on the other hand, it 
will be of such an uneven character (alteration always hav- 
ing a tendency to accelerate, and revisers being always dan- 
gerously open to the temptation of using with increasing free- 
dom acquired facilities), that the uniform character of the 
present version will always hold its own against the irreg- 
ular development of its temporary rival. Principles, then, 
must be laid down, though at the same time we confess, if 
there is to be real success, there must always be in reserve a 
dispensing power for passages where from varied reasons, 
textual, exegetical, and linguistic, the old rendering must be 
left untouched. It is here where the great difficulty of the 
work will be felt, and here also where no rules can be laid 
down, but where we can ultimately trust to nothing but to 
sensitive judgment, and to the acquired tact of a watchful 
experience. Subject to such a necessary limitation, we may 
now endeavor to state and classify those cases to which re- 
vision may be properly applied. We will begin with those 
about which there will be least doubt, and advance gradually 
to the point where a just conservatism, and a due regard to 
the principles already laid down, seem fairly to stop us. 

The first class of passages demanding correction will al- 
ways be those where there is clear and plain error, and where 



88 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

the incorrectness would be recognized by any competent 
Passages invoiv- scholar to whom the passage was submitted. 

ing doctrinal er- . 

for. Here our duty is obvious. Faithfulness, and 

loyalty to God's truth, require that the correction should be 
made unhesitatingly. This class of cases will, however, em- 
brace many different instances ; some of real and primary im- 
portance, some in which the sense will be but little affected, 
when the error, grammatically great as it really may be, is 
removed, and the true rendering substituted. For instance, 
we shall have in the class we are now considering passages 
in which the error is one of a doctrinal nature, or, to use the 
most guarded language, involves some degree of liability to 
doctrinal misconception. For such passages we have not so 
far to go as it is popularly supposed. Take such a passage 
as Rom. v., 1 5, 17, where, as Bentley observed long ago,* the 
neglect of the articles in the original has not only obscured 
the sense and weakened the antithesis, but has left an open- 
ing for inferences on redemption and reprobation which, to 
say the least, are not substantiated by this passage. Take 
again such a passage as 1 Cor. xi., 29, where, if we do not go 
the full length of attributing definite error to the translation, 
we have, at any rate, a rendering of Kplfia which, combined 
with the intruded avafrwe, has produced an influence on thou- 
sands, and even tens of thousands, of a very unhappy kind. 
We must add to such a list Heb. x,, 38, where the words in- 
serted in the Authorized Version, to say the very least, have 
nothing whatever to correspond with them in the original. 
We may also name Acts ii., 47, where, confessedly hard as it 
may be to express -ovg (rui^ojiivovg (" those who were being 
saved") in an easy and idiomatic translation, faithfulness re- 
quires that we should change a rendering which not only 
leads to a doctrinal inference not warranted by the tense, 
but obscures the true and almost technical meaning which 

* The passage will be found in Bentley's Sermon upon Popery' (Works, vol. 
iii.,p. 245), and in Trench, Revision of Auth. Vers., p. 88 seq., where it is 
quoted at full length. 



NATURE AND LIMITS OF REVISION 89 

this important expression constantly maintains in passages 
of profound doctrinal import, e.g., Luke xiii., 23. In a pas- 
sage confessedly of great difficulty as to its exact reference, 
viz., Col. ii., 15, the mistranslation of aTTEKlvaa^evoQ has at any 
rate put wholly out of sight the mysterious connection which 
this passage seems to have with the closing hours of our 
Lord's earthly life, and the deep significance of some inci- 
dents in the awful scene on Golgotha. We have before al- 
luded to John x., 16, where we can certainly draw no infer- 
ence as to the oneness of the " fold," and where the present 
translation might seem to lead to this unauthorized inference. 
We might easily continue this list, but as it is not our ob- 
ject to enumerate, but rather to illustrate, it may be enough 
to have called attention to the fact that, in spite of the very 
common assumption to the contrary, there are many passages 
from which erroneous doctrinal inferences have been drawn, 
but where the inference comes from the translation, and not 
the original. 

The list of actual and definite errors of a less important 
Errors of less kind is very large. In the majority of such cases 
importance. it ma y ^ Q Emitted that Christian life and prac- 
tice neither is nor has been ever affected in the slightest de- 
gree by the existence of these errors. For instance, if we 
give the proper translation of 'idere in Gal. vi., 11, of Zlv\L£ovteq 
in Matt, xxiii., 24 (unless, indeed, this be due to the printer), 
of KavaviTrjg in Matt, x., 4 (comp. Mark iii., 18), of Sm^pi^d/ie- 
vai in Acts ii., 3, of eitiovQ in 1 Thess. v., 22, of Trwpuxric in Eph. 
iv., 18, oiipaivEffQe in Phil, ii., 15, and even of airev^ovraQ in 2 Pet. 
iii., 12, we contribute to the general faithfulness and accuracy 
of our version, but add nothing to what could be considered 
of serious moment. As far as the general reader is concerned, 
the true or the erroneous rendering might nearly equally well 
hold its place in the English text, and this remark is often 
used as an argument for leaving things alone. But the re- 
mark is equally available for the contrary course : if the re- 
moval of errors would so little affect the general reader,, sure- 

Ll 



90 ELLICOTT ON BE VISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

ly it is all the more the duty of faithfulness to the message 
of inspiration to transmit it to the English hearer free from 
incorrectness and error, on pure principle / and the more so, 
as there is no reasonable probability that even what might 
be called prejudiced attachment to our version as it stands 
would in any way be weakened by the change. It would be 
counted so small as to be to the general reader not a matter 
of conscience, but of indifference. 

We may then, perhaps, fairly conclude that all errors, 
whether of the first or second class of those enumerated, or, 
indeed, of any class, should be removed, and it may be said 
with all loyalty to our Authorized Version, but yet with all 
truth, that these errors will be found to be by no means few 
in number. 

When we come to the more subdued shade of error that 
Removal of mac- ma y ^ e expressed for convenience by the word 
much cons?dera- ww&ccwrac^ or inexactness, it becomes much more 
tlon ' difficult to decide on the limits to which revi- 

sion should extend. If the principle of faithfulness to God's 
truth move us, on the one hand, to correct wherever the En- 
glish Version does not accurately convey the meaning or 
shade of meaning of the original, we yet have, on the other 
hand, two countervailing considerations which must weigh 
seriously with every sober thinker. First, it must be re- 
membered that to countless thousands the English Bible is 
the Book of Life. To them it is as though God had vouch- 
safed thus to communicate with man from the first: it is a 
positive effort to them to feel and believe that the familiar 
words, as they meet the eye or fall on the ear, did not thus 
for the first time issue from the lips of patriarch or prophet ; 
nay, that the touching cadences«in the Gospels were not orig- 
inally so modulated by the tender and sympathizing voice 
of our own adorable Master. We have heard even of ser- 
mons in which such thoughts have unconsciously bewrayed 
themselves, and believe that at this moment there are num- 
bers of earnest people who could easily be carried away by 



NATURE AND LIMITS OF REVISION. 91 

their deeper feelings, almost at any moment, into a thorough 
sympathy with appeals to the familiar language of their cher- 
ished English Testament, and who, when reminded of the act- 
ual facts, would with a sigh awaken from the happy illusion, 
and avow their reluctance to part with this mentis gratissi- 
mus error. Are we to have no sympathy for this large class ? 
Is there not something in the heart-affection for the " dear 
old English Bible" that deserves the respect even of the 
scholar and the theologian? Child-like faith is very blessed ; 
let us run the risk of being called sentimental or quixotic 
rather than needlessly offend one of these little ones that thus 
believe in His Word and in Him. 

Secondly, it must not be forgotten that the effort to be ac- 
curate often involves some sacrifice of the idiomatic turn and 
rhythmic flow of the English, and that the gain in exactness 
has often to be purchased at a price which even the most de- 
voted scholar might, on consideration, hesitate to pay. The 
different idioms of the two languages, the parallelism rather 
than coincidence in respect of tenses, the much less logical 
use of particles in our own language than in Greek, the dif- 
ferent principles of order and emphasis — all these things real- 
ly do often make accuracy only attainable on terms which 
are beyond our means, and which would, in fact, be inconsist- 
ent with the ground-principles of a version which is to be 
read publicly as well as privately, and is to be idiomatic as 
well as exact. How often it must have happened to many a 
one whose eyes may fall on these lines, to have made a verbal 
correction in our version which, at the time, seemed not only 
certain, but a clear contextual improvement, and then, after 
an interval, to have read it over again, and come to the can- 
did opinion that it was an over-correction, and, by being so, 
was really less faithful to the tone of the original than that 
which it had displaced. This consideration is really one of 
very great importance, for it reaches to that very difficult 
question of the limits to which, in translation, a language may 
be stretched without losing its idiomatic vigor and elasticity. 



92 JELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

But are we then to attempt nothing in the way of securing 
Limitations in greater accuracy in the English Version ? Is it 
this nature. not one of the most certain facts in the world 
that it is in the matter of technical exactness and grammat- 
ical accuracy that our version is most open to adverse com- 
ment ? After what we have already seen of the characteris- 
tics and pedigree of our version, it would not be natural to 
expect that it could be otherwise. It is substantially a ver- 
sion made by one faithful man long ago, under circumstances 
of varying trial, revised partially at intervals, and only thor- 
oughly revised two hundred and sixty years ago. Great ad- 
vances in accuracy of scholarship have been made since that 
last revision, and modern eyes detect many things that were 
not observed then. Are not many needful distinctions ef- 
faced ? Is there not far too much license in the use of En- 
glish synonyms when it is the same Greek word and a sim- 
ilar context ? Are there not very many cases in which the 
force of the article is missed ? Are not important shades of 
meaning conveyed by the tenses of the original, as, for exam- 
ple, the imperfect and the preterperfect, often quite needless- 
ly obliterated ? Is there not often inaccuracy in the transla- 
tion of the prepositions, and sometimes even in passages of 
some little doctrinal importance ? Is there not, occasionally 
at least, an instance to be found in which the logical connec- 
tion of a passage has suffered by a loose translation of a lead- 
ing particle ? Certainly : all this may be safely and frankly 
admitted ; the careful comparison of any single chapter of 
moderate length with the Greek would show the justice of 
probably every one of the foregoing queries. We do not 
give instances simply because they can be found in any hand- 
book,* and because it is really difficult, with so large a choice, 

* We may refer especially to Abp. Trench On the Revision of the Author- 
ized Version, chap, iv., v., vii., viii., ix., where numerous examples will be 
found of inaccuracies and questionable renderings. The Hints for an Im- 
proved Translation of the late Professor Scholefield will also supply many 
instances. We still, however, need a careful work in which the errors, in- 
accuracies, and doubtful renderings in the Authorized Version might be ar- 



NATURE AND LIMITS OF REVISION 93 

to make a sufficiently wide and inclusive selection. Well, 
then, what are we to do in such cases ? Up to what limits 
are we to carry revision in the particular case of inaccuracy, 
and yet retain that principle of least possible alteration which 
is the only principle on which any successful revision could 

be made? The foregoing paragraphs have perhaps 

tended to supply the true answer : Inaccuracies, about which 
there is no reasonable doubt, may be beneficially corrected, 
subject to the following limitations, viz., that the idiom of 
the language is not affected by the change ; that the change 
does not introduce more than is implied in the original, and 
is, in fact, an over-correction ; that the tone of the clause or 
sentence, and the familiar rhythm, are not seriously inter- 
fered with ; and, lastly, that the character of the passage and 
its associations are not such that the correction of the local 
inaccuracy might weaken the general reader's real apprecia- 
tion of the tenor of the whole passage. This last restriction 
is of importance, as it often happens that a correction of some 
inaccuracy of detail mars in some subtle manner the balance 
of the whole clause, and ultimately really introduces more 
inaccuracy in our general perception of its tenor and senti- 
ment than has been removed by the alteration. In a word, 
the tone of the passage has been injured, and the change in 
the part has interfered with the harmony of the whole. 

If these restrictions, which we have studiously stated in 
negative clauses, are carefully observed., it would not seem 
imprudent to extend revision to indisputable inaccuracies. 
It is clear, however, that no rules or restrictions will be suffi- 
cient to apply to all the really numberless cases that will 
come under the observation of the reviser. Tact and expe- 
rience, and, let us not forget to add, a careful imitation of the 
manner in which the revisers of 1611 acted, in respect of in- 
ranged on some scholarly and logical principle. Newcome's fifteen rules are 
made the heads under which some useful examples are grouped hy a writer 
in the Westminster Review for Jan., 1857, p. 141 seq. These rules, however, 
require muchmodification. 



94 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

exactness, toward the Bishops' Bible (a truly admirable por- 
tion of their work), will be found to do more for us than all 
rules. We may, however, pause for a page or two to give a 
few examples, some of inaccuracies which might be benefi- 
cially removed, and some of cases where, for one or more of 
the restrictions above alluded to, it might seem best to leave 
the passage alone. 

It is really difficult to know how to make a selection ; but 
Examples of in- let us take first that laro-e class of cases where a 

accuracies. Gen- . . ° 

itive of quality, genitive ol quality is found in the original, and 
where in our version an adjective is used. In such a passage 
as Phil, iii., 21, it seems quite clear that "the body of our 
vileness" and " the body of his glory" would be more truth- 
ful and forcible than "our vile body" and "his glorious body," 
as we now have it in our English Version. It would be 
consistent, too, with the general principle of our version, in 
which the instances are numerous where the adjectival trans- 
lation of the older versions is removed for the more vigorous 
and expressive genitive. Thus, in Eph. i., 18, " the riches of 
his glorious inheritance" of Tyndale and the Genevan Testa- 
ment rightly passes under the discriminating hand of the last 
revisers into the familiar " riches of the glory of his inherit- 
ance ;" and the even more familiar " mammon of unright- 
eousness," in Luke xvi., 9, is the wise change from the " wick- 
ed mammon" of Tyndale, and the "unrighteous mammon" of 
Cranmer. At the same time, it would be hardly advisable 
to change in the very same parable, and only one verse be- 
fore, "the unjust steward" into "the steward of injustice" 
or " the steward of unrighteousness," though it is certainly 
grammatically true that the genitive is a genitive of quality, 
and does very distinctly serve to mark that aliria was the 
ruling principle of the man's wretched life. Tact is here our 
only guide. 

Again, can we be sufficiently thankful that our last revisers 
fell back on the rendering of Coverdale in 2 Thess. ii., 3, " the 
man of sin," rather than " the sinful man" of Tyndale and all 



NATURE AND LIMITS OF REVISION. 95 

the earlier versions except the Rhemish ? though, by the 
way, a little lower down, in ver. 7, we may reasonably ex- 
press regret that they did not maintain the true meaning of 
avofila. "Lawlessness" is to be the essential character of 
Antichrist, and is a part of the mystery which was showing 
itself even in the apostle's day, and is now so ominously de- 
veloping itself in our own. 

"YVe should, then, only be following the precedent of our 
own version if in many passages, such as Rom. viii., 21, 2 
Cor. iv., 4 (Cranmer keeps the genitive), Col. i., 13, 1 Pet. i., 
14 (contrast the rendering in Eph. ii., 2), 2 Pet. ii., 14, al., we 
introduce the strong and expressive genitive of the original 
Greek. 

In the tenses, the cases of inaccuracy are very numerous; 
Tenses. but here again considerable caution and a due 
observance of the restrictions above alluded to will be found 
especially needed. In the imperfect, for instance, there are 
several passages in which a strict translation is absolutely 
required by the circumstances, but there are also very many 
more in which the flow of the English Version would be im- 
peded, and the general aspect of the action described unduly 
emphasized, if the more literal translation was introduced. 
For example, in Luke v., 6, hep^yvvTo clearly ought to be 
translated " was breaking," or was " beginning to break ;" 
but if, a few verses lower, we adopted the same sort of ren- 
dering in the case of Uipyzro and awr\pxovro (ver. 15), we 
should not only be overdoing the translation, but precluding 
ourselves from marking by a special change of diction in the 

next verse the r\v viroywp&v teal Trpovevxoftevoc, where the 

resolved form would really seem to have been designed by 
the evangelist to express more strongly than the ordinary 
imperfect the continuance, and, for the time, the habitual 
character of the action.* 

* Two of the earlier translators mark the change of diction, and the appa- 
rent specification of the continuance of the act, by the translation, "And he 
kepte him silfe apart" (Tyndale), "and he kepte him silfe out of the way" 



96 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

In the translation of the prepositions many wise changes 
Prepositions, might be made, some of them of real interest 
and importance. For instance, in Gal. iii., 19, much of a doc- 
trinal nature is involved in the translation we assign to the 
quasi-preposition x«P l, 'j while in the last clause of the same 
verse a really historical fact seems brought out by observing 
the true force of £m with the genitive ; angels were the in- 
termediate agencies by which the law was ordained on Sinai. 
As Theodoret remarks, they were present and assistants at 
the solemn scene. Again, in 2 Pet. i., 5-7, the ethical rela- 
tion of the substantives to each other is quite effaced by the 
translation unfortunately adopted in the Authorized Version: 
the development of Christian graces the one from the other 
is exquisitely marked in the pregnant and inclusive kv of the 
original, and is, to a great degree, preserved in the simple 
and usual translation of the preposition as rightly preserved 
by Tyndale and Cranmer. But here again caution will be 
necessary, and a due observance not merely of technical 
identity of language, but of the tenor of the passage ; as, for 
example, though the significant use of the preposition e\q is 
rightly preserved by the A. V. in the translation of Gal. iii., 
27, elg Xpta-ov c/Wr/o-ffyre, it is abundantly clear that such a 
translation would be very inappropriate in 1 Cor. x., 2, elg tov 
ls\ovar\v ej3a7rri(7avro, where our own version, by its happy 
choice of "unto," at once relieves us from the somewhat 
awkward " under" of Tyndale, and at the same time marks 
the essential difference between a baptism unto Moses and 
baptism into the mystical body of Christ. 

In the case of particles, numerous instances could be given, 

Particles, especially in St. Paul's Epistles, where the whole 

reasoning of a passage is brought out by a careful observance 

(Cranmer). As a general rule, it would seem desirable, where some latent 
meaning is really brought out by such a change, to make it, especially as we 
have the authority of the early versions, but it would be a rule with many ex- 
ceptions. For instance, in Gal. i. , 22, we might perhaps tolerate ' ' I remain- 
ed unknown" as marking the continuance of the state, but in ver. 23 atcovov- 
rtg 7]<jav could hardly be translated otherwise than "they heard." 



NATURE AND LIMITS OF REVISION 97 

of the use of the illative and argumentative apa or ap olv rath- 
er than of the lighter and consequence-suggesting olv ; hut 
even here caution must be used, and a very close regard paid 
to the tenor of the passage before we introduce alterations ; 
this simple fact being enough at once to warn us that St. 
Paul uses the simpler olv at least four times as often as he 
uses apa, and that St. John, in all his writings, never uses the 
latter particle once, though he uses olv considerably more 
than 200 times. The same caution in not overdressing will 
be found necessary in reference to most of the other particles 
used in the New Testament. In the majority of cases the 
general force of the particles has been observed in our Au- 
thorized Version, if not on principles of strict grammatical 
precision, yet with an instinctive feeling for their essential 
meanings, which has often led to singularly happy render- 
ings. Still the cases are numerous in which a guarded change 
will bring out latent meanings that may have escaped the at- 
tention even of observant readers of Scripture. To take a 
final instance : we seem fairly justified in giving to the aXXa 
at the beginning of John xix., 34, its stronger adversative 
force, even though a negative, which usually somewhat mod- 
ifies this force, is found in the preceding clause. If, then, we 
turn the lighter and here somewhat trivial "but" into the 
stronger "howbeit," we just call up the interesting thought 
that, though the holy body was to all appearance dead, yet 
that, to make it certain, the Roman soldier had thrust his spear 
into the sacred side, and shown something like the same rough 
instinctive mercy which had been shown three or four hours 
before (ver. 29, compared with Matt, xxvii., 48), perhaps by 
the same hand. While, however, such a change may perhaps 
be made in this particular instance, it would be undesirable 
to adopt such a translation, say in chap, xv., 25, or any simi- 
lar passage, where the lighter shade of the meaning is, in En- 
glish at least, more natural. 

We have mentioned a few instances, but the cases in which 
greater accuracy might be attained without the least shock 



98 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

to the general reader, and without in any degree affecting 
Words uuder the flow of the English, are really very numer- 

vmculum of a ° ' . 

prep, or article, ous. We have that large class of cases in which 
nouns stand under the vinculum of a single preposition, and 
where the interpolation in English of the second preposition 
really sometimes gives a tinge of meaning which is not in 
the Greek. We have that very interesting class of cases 
which fall under what is technically called Granville Sharpe's 
rale, where two substantives are similarly under the vincu- 
lum of a common article, and where the incorrect interpola- 
tion of it in English may, in some few great passages like 
Tit. ii,, 13, really weaken the authority of a weighty witness 
to a catholic truth. 

The cases, again, in which the force of the article is neg- 
Articie. lected, or in which it is needlessly and even er- 
roneously inserted, are especially numerous. In some of 
these we really sometimes obscure a truth of deep interest 
and importance. Let 1 Thess. iv., IT be an instance. Here, 
by the translation " in the clouds," when it ought to be sim- 
ply " in clouds," we mar the whole wondrous picture. The 
first translation would make it simply a being caught up to 
the clouds above, whereas the true translation suggests the 
idea of the clouds mysteriously enwreathing and bearing up- 
ward each company of the faithful, and of the holy living ris- 
ing from earth as their Master rose, when the " cloud received 
him out of their sight." 

Lastly, when we take into consideration the number of 

individual passages in which individual words have been 

words. inaccurately translated, and either some doctrine 

affected (e.g., \ovrpov, Tit. iii., 5, " laver," not "washing"),* 

* In this particular instance our venerable version would seem to present 
some trace of doctrinal bias. Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Genevan Version 
all properly recognize the purely concrete nature of the term Xovrpov (see, in 
reference to the termination, Bopp, Vergleichende GrammatiJc, § 815, vol. iii., 
p. 195 ; Donaldson, Cratylus, § 267, p. 473), and give to the word, at any 
rate, an approximately correct translation * ' fountayne (of the newe birth"). 
The Rhemish, following the Vulgate, gives the more exact "laver." The 



NATURE AND LIMITS OF REVISION 99 

some important fact obscured {e.g., (pavepudijvai, 2 Cor. v., 10 : 
every man will " be made manifest," and laid bare, as well as 
"appear" before the Judge), some unwelcome idea called up 
(as, for example, by the translation of (wa in Rev. i\\, 6, al., 
especially when Orjpiov occurs so often and in such an utterly 
different sense), or some striking imagery obliterated (e.g., 
avwatjaiiEvov, Heb. xi., 13 ; they were far from having " em- 
braced" them: as Tyndale and Cranmer rightly mark in 
translation, they did but " salute" them from afar) — when we 
take all these numerous isolated cases, as well as the classes 
of instances which we have before specified, it seems impossi- 
ble to resist the conviction that revision ought certainly to 
extend to cases of inaccuracy, but that it also ought to be 
subjected torestrictions, and that each individual case should 
be estimated on its own merits. 

Besides cases of definite inaccuracy, we have a large class 
insufficient ren- °^ cases ni which our translation is insufficient 
denngs. an( j } nac i e q ua t e rather than positively inaccu- 

rate or inexact. Here the same rules mainly apply as stated 
above ; but still greater care is required, otherwise the whole 
texture of our version might be insensibly altered. Indeed, 
it may perhaps be safely said that if a case does not come 
clearly under the head of a definite inaccuracy it should be 
left untouched. We want a revised, not what is ambitiously 
called an improved translation. 

Similar care will have to be used in reference to debatable 
Debatable pas- passages. Where the balance of opinion either 
sages - way is nearly the same, there prudence suggests 

that the present English Version should obviously be allowed 
to remain. Even in important passages, such as Phil, ii., 6, 
where the judgment of modern criticism seems clearly to pre- 
ponderate against the rendering of ap-ay^/oV, adopted by the 
older versions and retained by the A. V., we should yet con- 
sider it questionable whether any change should be intro- 

translation " washing" would seem to have been introduced by the translators 
fromWicliffe. 



100 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

duced. The same may be said of the interesting and diffi- 
cult passage, Rom. viii., 20, 21, where, though it does seem re- 
quired by the general tenor of the passage that the 6Vt should 
be regarded as closely dependent on the preceding iXwidi (" in 
hope that," etc.) rather than as causal and commencing a new 
clause, we should still hesitate before we made the change. 
Even in a yet clearer case, where there does seem something 
like inaccuracy, and where a change would certainly seem to 
cast some feeble light on the exegetical difficulty, we should 
hesitate before we actually substituted " inasmuch as they 
were disobedient" for the "who were disobedient" of the 
A. V. in the celebrated passage 1 Pet. iii., 20. The grammat- 
ical certainty of the clear difference in thought between a 
participle with and without the article would weigh much 
with us, still, even here we might not feel a case strong 
enough for an absolute change. In regard of the translation 
of 7rvevfxaTi in verse 18 we should not be so sensitive, as here 
the insertion of the rw is clearly against evidence, and the 
translation would have to follow the true text. In all such 
debatable passages, then, prudence would seem to suggest 
the maintenance of the present version, though the altern- 
ative rendering might most properly be placed in the mar- 
gin. And if in these greater passages, so, certainly, would it 
seem desirable to leave the text untouched in passages of 
minor importance, such, for example, as Luke ii., 49, kv toiq 
tov Uarpog fiov (house, or things?), John v., 39, kpeware (pres- 
ent, or imperative?), John xii., 6, spaffrafev (bare, or pur- 
loined ?), Col. !., 15, irpwTOTOKOQ iraffriQ Krlffeojg (" of every crea- 
ture," or "before every creature?"). In all such passages, 
where the arguments are nearly in equipoise, conservative 
principles might judiciously be allowed to prevail. 

But in passages where there is an inconsistency of render- 
inconsistency of in g> ^ would seem proper to act with greater 
renderings. freedom. While we may rightly recognize and 
maintain the general principle of our own version, and, in- 
deed, of some of the earlier versions, viz., in preserving a free- 



NATURE AND LIMITS OF REVISION. 101 

om as to the rendering of the same Greek word, we can 
ardly defend the varied translations of the same words that 
re found in our version of the Synoptical Gospels. There is 
artainly force in the remark of Archbishop Trench, that, in 
ises of similarity of language in the Greek, as, for instance, 
i the case of the Epistle to the Ephesians and the Epistle 
) the Colossians, a careful version ought in some degree to 
^produce the interesting phenomenon of the similarity of 
ords and expressions in the original.* Here, then, there 
ially seems valid reason for a reconsideration of the great 
ariety of rendering which we find in the Authorized Ver- 
on, and for the belief that not only in these more general 
istances, but in the case of particular words, much improve- 
lent might properly be introduced. No plea for freedom 
in fully justify us in retaining all the seventeen different ren- 
erings of Karapyeio, when the word itself is only used about 
venty-seven times in all, or the nine different renderings of 
]X6(o out of a total of twelve passages ; and that these are 
Dt isolated or extreme cases will be seen by any one who 
ill take the trouble to examine the various translations that 
re given to almost any word of fairly common use in the 
reek Testament. We advise any one who may feel a doubt 
a this subject to look into a useful work called TJie English- 
man? s Greek Concordance of the New Testament, and to judge 
>r himself.f Here, at any rate, revision would be not only 

* See Rev. of Authorized Version, p. 59, where examples are given of need- 
ss changes in rendering in the case of some words common to the Epistle 
the Ephesians and Epistle to the Colossians — e. g., Ivepytta, Eph. i., 19, 
ol. ii., 12 ; TairuvocppoGvvr}, Eph. iv., 2, Col. iii., 12 ; avfifiifiaZonevov, Eph. 
., 16, Col. ii., 19. To which we may add daeXyeta, 2 Pet. ii., 7, Jude 4 ; 
<ptoTng, 2 Pet. ii., 10, Jude 8 (the margin of the former passage, however, 
ves also "dominion," as in the latter passage); and the really perverse 
lange of rendering in £60oc, 2 Pet. ii., 17, Jude 13, and that in a clause 
here to the extent of eight continuous words St. Peter and St. Jude are ab- 
•lutely identical. These are cases in which, with the greatest desire to 
ake as few changes as possible, hardly any reviser could forbear suggesting 
change in one of the two synonyms thus found in identical passages, 
t This useful work is better known to' scholars and interpreters than to 
e general student. It had, however, reached a third edition in 1860. The 



1 02 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

desirable, but necessary. Yet here also caution would be re- 
quired. No mere mechanical uniformity of translation is for 
one moment to be advocated. The word that most faithful- 
ly represents the meaning of the passage under considera- 
tion is the word to be used and to be maintained, without 
any reference to the mere fact of its having been used or not 
having been used in other passages where the same Greek 
word may have occurred. Where, however, not only the 
Greek word is the same, but the tenor and context of the 
passage is the same, there variation is not only undesirable, 
but even unfaithful. It is only, then, in clear cases that this 
form of revision should be applied, but there it should be ap- 
plied without hesitation. 

The last class of cases in which revision seems necessary 
obscure ren- ^ s where we find obscurity, whether due to the 
dermgs. now an tiquated meaning of the English words, 

or to the difficulty or ambiguity of the original Greek. 

There are a few cases of the latter kind in which the re- 
visers of 1611 seem to have studiously left the difficulty as 
they found it, and to have made the English only too faith- 
ful a rendering of the Greek.* Such a verse, for instance, as 

plan of the work is very simple. The Greek word is given, and under it the 
passages where it is used ; but the passages so cited are not, as in Bruder's 
Concordance, in Greek, but in English, and in the words of the Authorized 
Version. The student can thus see at a glance not only how many times a 
word is used in the original, but how it is translated in each passage. The 
judgment that a sober inspection of this volume would lead to would seem to 
be this — that, as a general rule, the variations of rendering in our version are 
certainly numerous, and even in excess ; but that, in the great majority of 
cases, the meaning directly or indirectly conveyed by the context has been 
felt and recognized, and the English word chosen accordingly. 

* It is very doubtful how far such a principle as this can be justified, viz., 
of leaving the English translation in the same state of ambiguity as the 
Greek, so that, if two meanings should be fairly compatible with the words 
of the original, they should be equally so with the words of the translation. 
It may be urged that it is literally faithful ; but, on the other hand, it must 
be felt to be an evasion. Let us take an instance. In the very doubtful 
words, John i., 9, ?]v to <pu>g to d\r)9ivov, o 0um'£fi iravTa dv9pw7rov £p%d/i£- 
vov tig tov Koo-fiov, there are obviously three constructions possible. Either 
ipxSfxsvov may be joined (1) with ijv as a sort of resolved imperfect, or (2) 



NA TUBE AND LIMITS OF REVISION. 103 

► r erse 36 of 1 Cor. vii., can hardly convey any meaning what- 
ever to the English reader, whereas by the simple insertion 
)f the word " daughter" in italics after the word " virgin" 
some clew to the meaning of the verse is at once given. Col. 
i., 23 is perhaps another instance. In such cases, however, 
,wo good rules must be systematically followed. First, the 
ranslator must be careful not to pass into the province of 
he interpreter, and to give a paraphrase instead of a faithful 
endering. All that he can or ought to do is, by some words 
n italics, or some happy choice of expression or subtle change 
>f collocation, to make the probable meaning of the Greek as 
dear and appreciable as the nature of the passage will ad- 
ait. Secondly, if there be difference of opinion as to the 
neaning of the words, one or more of the alternative render- 
ngs should be placed in the margin. 

In the case of archaisms which tend to obscure the mean- 
.rchaisms, if ob- ing, revision should certainly be adopted. But 
Amoved. here this very obvious rule should be followed : 

.rchaisms should be removed, not wherever they occur, sim- 
tly because they are archaisms, but in those cases only where 
hey leave the general reader in doubt as to the meaning of 
he words or passage. For instance, few general readers or 
tearers know what St. Paul means when he tells the Corinthi- 
ns that he knows "nothing by himself" (1 Cor. iv., 4), or 

ith av9pu)Trov as a tertiary predicate (see Donaldson, Greek Grammar, § 
89 seq.), or (3) with <pu>g as a secondary predicate (see Donaldson, New 
Iratylus, § 304, or Greek Grammar, § 436 seq.). Assuming — which may be 
ssumed — that the choice mainly lies between (2) and (3), are we to adopt a 
•anslation which would leave the English as doubtful as to structure as the 
rreek, e.g.," every man coming into the world" (so the Five Clergymen), or 
re we to make the meaning distinct by translating either according to (2), 
when he cometh into the world" (the A. V. is inexact), or according to (3), 
by coming into the world" — "*. e., by the Word's coming into the world ?'' 
'he answer is not easy. The decision, however, of most interpreters would, 
e think, be this : Do not adopt the evasive translation, but place one of the 
vo latter translations in the text and the other in the margin. The result 
i this individual case would probably be that (3) would obtain the place in 
le text, and that (2) would stand in the margin. To evade is never satis- 
tctory. 



104 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

would suppose that the words in the Greek were ohUv efiavr^ 
crvvoila. Here a change of preposition (" against" for " by") 
would be quite enough, without turning for aid to the wordy 
. " I am not guilty in conscience of any thing" of the Rhemish 
Version. The " by myself" is found in all the old versions, 
and is an heir-loom from Tyndale. It would still be under- 
stood in some parts of England, but is certainly misunder- 
stood by the majority of English readers. The often-quoted 
"took up our carriages" of Acts xxi., 15 is another instance. 
Here the archaism has no such pedigree as the former, but 
was due to the last revision: Tyndale's rendering is "we 
made ourselves ready," which under Coverdale's hand be- 
came the very vague " were ready." Cranmer, followed by 
the Bishops' Bible, adopts the not very felicitous " we took 
up our burdens ;" the Genevan the more exact but certainly 
homely " we trussed up our fardels ;" while the Rhemish 
comes very badly out of it with the frigid and scarcely accu- 
rate " being prepared," due to the " praeparati" of the Vul- 
gate. Tyndale's rendering is really, perhaps, the best of 
those already given, and has on its side, what perhaps its au- 
thor was little aware of, the authority of the venerable Syri- 
ac Version. Many similar instances might be cited, such, for 
example, as Matt, vi., 25, " take no thought ;" Acts xvii., 23, 
" devotions ;" 1 Tim. v., 4, " nephews;" in all of which change 
is clearly required, owing to the change of meaning which 
the lapse of time has introduced into the words. It may be 
doubted, also, whether a passage which a few years ago was 
quoted in the House of Commons* as a mistranslation, " not 
slothful in business" (Rom. xii., 11), does not really involve 
an archaism, and whether the " busyness" of 1611 did not ap- 
proach more nearly to the (nrovdrj of the original than it cer- 
tainly does now. There is a little doubt, however, in the 

* This particular passage was referred to by Mr. Hey wood in his speech on 
Eevision when moving the address above referred to (see p. 14), and cited as 
being erroneously translated. See the speech as given in Hansard's Debates 
(3d Series), vol. cxliii., p. 122 seq. 



NA TUBE AND LIMITS OF BEVISION. 105 

matter, as Tyndale, by his " let not the business which ye 
have in hand be tedious to you," though showing praisewor- 
thy exactness as to the article (ttj (nrovdrj prj oxvrjpol), has ap- 
parently used " business" in the sense in which it is now used, 
and which a popular preacher on this sermon found to his 
cost was certainly not the sense which St. Paul intended to 
be assigned to it in his practical and ever-seasonable precept. 
Love and zeal in the hearts of the very best of us are ever in 
danger of growing dull and cold. 

We have now concluded our general survey of the limits 

concluding re- to which revision might properly be carried. 

marks. ^y e } iave geen ^^ not on jy w h ere error is plain- 

ly to be recognized, but even in cases where inaccuracy, in- 
consistency, or obscurity may be distinctly visible, there it 
would seem the duty of a faithful revision to introduce cor- 
rections. There may be also other cases hardly falling ex- 
actly under any one of the classes just specified where an at- 
tentive reviser might feel that a change was necessary to 
bring out the full meaning of the holy original, but these 
probably would not be many, and, when the great principle 
of the least possible change consistent with faithfulness was 
borne in mind, would often be reconsidered on a final review. 
We may fairly assume, then, that we have specified the lim- 
its beyond which no revision of the future would ever be like- 
ly to go, and to which, if the revision were undertaken by au- 
thority, it ought certainly to be restrained by definite prelim- 
inary instructions. 

Into the minor matters of the spelling of proper names, 
correction of doubtful English (Matt, xvi., 15 ; John ix., 31, 
al.), use of italics (Col. i., 19 ; Heb. x., 38, al.), punctuation (1 
Cor. xv., 29, 32 ; 2 Cor. v., 19, al.), and other matters of detail, 
it does not seem here necessary to enter.* In all, the same 

* All these questions, however, are of importance, especially the introduc- 
tion of italics and punctuation. In regard to the former, a very careful in- 
quiry would have to be instituted as to what are to be considered the italics 
of the Authorized Version, if, indeed, the " previous question" would not have 

Mm 



106 ELLICOTT ON HE VISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

general principles of restriction above alluded to would com- 
monly be found applicable, but as the likelihood of disturb- 
ing existing prepossessions by such changes would be but 
small, the restrictive principle would not need to be very 
rigorously applied. Perhaps we may shortly say that on 
the first of the cases above-mentioned (spelling of proper 
names) but little change Avould be desirable, but that in tfre 
last (punctuation) considerable improvements might be in- 
troduced. Even here, however, caution would be required. 
Punctuation is not by any means in so satisfactory a state, 
even in our modern historical works, that we could presume 
overmuch on modern theories. Under any circumstance, it 
is to be hoped that no toleration would be extended to that 
objectionable, though, as we fear our own pages bear witness, 
occasionally serviceable modern mark, the dash. The revis- 
ers, we think, would be wise to make the Cambridge edition 
their standard, and to adhere to its punctuation, unless the 
exegesis of the passage clearly required a change. 

"We may now pass onward to the actual application of the 
principles above laid down. 

to be raised as to whether they might not be dispensed with altogether. The 
edition of 1611 has never been held to be a valid authority, many instances 
occurring in which supplementary words are inserted, and not, as usually, 
printed in italics : see, for example, Gal. i., 8, 9, where there is a distinct in- 
consistency in printing ("preach any other Gospel")mtwo consecutive verses. 
There appears to have been a thorough revision of these additions in the Cam- 
bridge folio edition of 1638. Between that time and 1769 many additions 
seem to have crept in, but since the latter date, when the italics were again 
revised, few, if any, fresh introductions appear to have been made. In a few 
passages (e. g., Acts vii., 9, "calling upon God") it may be doubted whether 
the gloss supplied by the added word is not exegetically incorrect. In the 
equally important question of punctuation there would be need of careful pre- 
liminary consideration. In many passages (e. g., 1 Cor. xv., 29, 32 ; 2 Cor. 
v., 19) the punctuation depends on previous exegetical decision. A careful 
paper on this subject will be found in the Bibliotheca Sacra for Oct., 1868. 
The fullest information on the subject of italics will be found in an excellent 
treatise by the late Bishop of Ely (Dr. Turton), entitled The Text of the En- 
glish Bible as printed at the Universities, Cambridge, 1833. 



AMOUNT OF CORRECTIONS PROBABLE. 107 



CHAPTER V. 

AMOTJXT OP COEEECTIONS LIKELY TO BE INTEODUCED. 

We have now come to a very practical question, and one 
Amount of that can only be satisfactorily answered in a 

change an impor- . .. .. ., . _ 

tant question. practical manner, and by actual samples 01 re- 
vision in accordance with the foregoing rules. It is, indeed, 
a question of primary importance. If it should appear that 
the amount of change necessary to bring our present version- 
up to a reasonable standard of faithfulness and accuracy is 
really not so great as is assumed by popular writers and 
thinkers on the subject, then much of the prejudice against a 
revision would disappear. The question, in fact, would then 
not assume the invidious form, Is it wise to tamper with our 
existing noble version ? but would simply be this : With such 
an amount of change before us as the foregoing principles 
would seem to involve, is it wise or unwise to disturb our 
existing translation ? On the amount of change the whole 
subject will mainly be found to turn, and till that be approx- 
imately estimated all dealing with current objections will be 
futile. Our present opponents — even those, it may be said, 
who at least ought to be better informed, at once assume 
that there icill be a great amount, and then proceed to state 
all the evils that will follow. 

We must, then, deal with the question, however roughly, 
How it may be °f probable amount. But how can this best be 

ascertained. done ? p robaWy in tw0 ways . First> as in the 

case of the amount of change likely to be introduced by 
grammatical and exegetical considerations, by taking some 
current revision made on general principles of distinct avoid- 
ance of change except where accuracy required it, and by 
making a calculation from actual inspection of the sum total 



108 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

of corrections that would be likely on such a system to be 
introduced in the whole of the New Testament. Secondly, 
by giving actual samples of revision, based on the princi- 
ples of the foregoing chapter, and checked by all the limita- 
tions which we have already specified. We shall then have 
before us a system in which generally unnecessary change is 
avoided, and also one in which limiting and conservative 
considerations are still more allowed to prevail. 

For a rough estimate of the greatest amount of change 
Amount of tnat ^ would seem reasonable to expect in any 
rev£fonof?he revision of the present day, we may turn to one 
rive clergymen. a ] reac jy use( j j n reference to textual change, The 
Revised Translation by Five Clergymen. In this work, though 
change has been very freely introduced wherever faithfulness 
and accuracy seemed to require it, yet it certainly may be 
considered as a fair specimen of a revision in which unneces- 
sary change is avoided. The amount of change is greater, 
especially in the case of inaccuracies, than would result from 
an observance of the principles of this chapter, as scarcely 
any instance, however slight, has been allowed to pass with- 
out emendation. If, then, we first make our calculation from 
this particular translation, we shall probably have arrived at 
results, as to the amount of change, beyond which it may be 
considered certain that no careful and conservative revision 
of the present time would ever advance. We shall, in fact, 
have arrived at what mathematicians call the superior limit, 
the inferior limit being either change only where it would 
simply be impossible, on any principle of faithfulness, to main- 
tain the present version, or no change at all. 

Let us take two different portions, one from the Gospels, 
the other from the Epistles, so as to form as fair an estimate 
as we can for the whole of the New Testament. If we take 
the first four chapters of St. John's Gospel and count all the 
changes (except those due to textual criticism, which have 
been estimated already), we shall find that they amount to 
about 1 72. The majority of these changes, however, is of so 



AMOUNT OF CORRECTIONS PROBABLE. 109 

slight a kind as regards the general tone and rhythm of the 
verse (insertions of the article, changes of perfect to the sim- 
ple preterite, etc.) that they would probably escape the notice 
of the general hearer. The number of verses in the four chap- 
ters is 166. 

If we now take a short epistle, St. Paul's Epistle to the Ga- 
latians, and similarly count the changes, we shall find them 
about 167, the number of verses being 149. If we now com- 
bine the results so as to form a rough estimate for the whole 
New Testament, this result is arrived at — about 339 changes 
in 815 verses, or very little more, on the average, than at the 
rate of one change for each verse. Such a result can not fairly 
be considered very alarming when we remember that this 
amounts, on an average, to a change of a single word in cer- 
tainly not less than every twenty. At any rate, even if it 
should seem alarming,* it may be considered sufficient to dis- 
pose of the greater part of the current arguments against re- 
vision, which are founded on the assumption of a far greater 

* It is worthy of notice, and certainly not unsatisfactory, that this amount 
of change has already been thought very alarming, not only by episcopal 
speakers in the recent sitting of Convocation (see The Guardian for May 11), 
but even in public journals, where thoroughness of work is more often recom- 
mended than purely conservative change. The fears, however, are not alto- 
gether well founded. In the first place, it may be said that no present revi- 
sion for public use would be likely to go so far as that of the Five Clergymen, 
on which the calculation was based. Still, when all the small changes, not 
only in the text and translation, but also in the italics and even punctuation, 
which would almost certainly be introduced even by the most conservative 
revisers, are taken into the calculation, it does not seem likelj that the aggre- 
gate of changes, great and small (the majority will certainly be of this de- 
scription), will numerically be much less than lias been specified, though the 
whole version will be revised to -a decidedly lower key than that of the Five 
Clergymen. The comparison in an article in The Times (for May 6) between 
one change in every verse and one note in every bar in a piece of music, is 
hardly fair. In the first place, the ratio of the one change to the average 
number of elements unchanged is very different in the two cases, and, in the 
next place, it is certainly true that we may express the same sentiment by 
different forms of words, whereas the same air can only be expressed by the 
same sequence of notes. After all, calculation will show, as is indicated in 
the text, that such a standard of revision will only involve change to the amount 
of Jive per cent. Can this be thought very serious ? 



HO ELLICOTT ON MEVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 

percentage of change. When it is quite clear that no revis- 
ion would be tolerated in excess of that of the Five Clergy- 
men, and when cool calculation shows that in that particular 
revision the amount of change would appear to be about one 
word, and that often a little word, in each verse, surely it is 
idle to call this recasting or remodeling, and to argue accord- 
ingly. 

It can not be pleaded that other portions of Scripture 
would show very different results to those derived from the 
portions now chosen. In St. Paul's Epistles, in the work re- 
ferred to, the amount of change is very steady. 

If the Epistle to the Hebrews had been translated, the 
Final amount change in it would probably have risen above 
on this basis. ^ standard, but this would have been more 
than balanced by the smaller amount of change in other Gos- 
pels, in two of which it would have probably fallen below. 
If, then, we may assume that any future revision would cer- 
tainly not overstep the limits practically observed in the 
work referred to, we arrive, for our superior limit, at this re- 
sult — one change in every five verses due to textual criticism, 
and about one change in each verse due to grammar and gen- 
eral exegesis. But this, let it be remembered, is the superior 
limit, below which it is perfectly clear that any revision of 
the present time would certainly fall. If every petty change 
due to every cause were to be taken into account, the result 
would be as above ; but, in the foregoing estimate, notice is 
only taken of the greater forms of change due to textual and 
grammatical considerations. 

We have now to try and estimate how far below this supe- 
Probabie rior limit anv modern revision would be likely 

amount in a , . . J 

new revision, to fall. This can only be done by giving some 
samples of revision, textual and grammatical, based on the 
principles of the last chapter, as far as a single mind can do 
it ; but it must be well borne in remembrance by the intelli- 
gent reader that he has here only the judgment of a single 
mind, and that the results would probably be different in the 



A M UNT OF CORRECTIONS PR OB A BLE. 1 1 1 

case of several minds in union. The difference, however, 
would not, perhaps, ultimately be in excess. On first going 
over the work the amount of change would be great ; but on 
a reconsideration of it, experience, maturity of powers, con- 
viction of the impossibility of following rigid rules, and — best 
of all teachers — consciousness in many passages of failure and 
of over-correction, would finally reduce the changes, on the 
second revision, almost by one half. All united companies of 
revisers, whatever their work may be, commonly begin with 
timidity, rapidly advance to boldness and excess of change, 
and end with caution and conservatism. When the iraXivrpo- 
ttoq avpa in revision, as the Greeks call it, once begins to blow, 
it continues with all the steadiness of a trade wind. It does 
not, then, by any means follow that a mixed company of re- 
visers would introduce in the long run more changes in actual 
amount than any one single scholar of moderation and sobri- 
ety. The changes introduced by the company would un- 
doubtedly be better than those of the individual, but they 
would not be more numerous. 

The portions of Scripture chosen are the Sermon on the 
Sample portions Mount, and four of the most difficult chapters of 

chosen for revis- ~ —» ,, ■ —, , -i -r-» in 

ion. St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans : the first as 

being a portion of Scripture in which the change needed is 
very little, the second as being a portion where necessary 
change reaches a maximum. Except in cases where the rea- 
son for the change is obvious, the principles on which it is 
made are shortly specified in the foot-notes. The changes 
due to textual criticism are indicated by spaced printing, and 
the reading of the Authorized Version given in the left-hand 
margin ; the changes due to grammar and other principles 
are indicated by blacker type, and the words which have been 
affected by the changes are given in the right-hand column. 
The amount, as well as the nature of the changes, can thus 
easily be seen. It may be added that italics are left as we 
find them in what may be called (for these added words) the 
first really standard edition (Cambridge, 1638). 






112 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

We begin, then, with our blessed Lord's Sermon on the 
Mount. 



ST. MATTHEW, CHAP. V. 

critical. i Xudi seeing the multitudes, he grammatical. 

went up into the* mountain : and a 
when he was set, his disciples came 
unto him. 2 And he opened his mouth, 
and taught them, saying, 3 Blessed 
are the poor in spirit : for theirs is 
the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed 
are they that mourn : for they shall 
be comforted.f 5 Blessed are the 
meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 
6 Blessed are they thatj hunger and which do 
thirst after righteousness : for they 
shall be filled. 7 Blessed are the mer- 
ciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 
8 Blessed are the poor in heart : for 
they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the 

* Here a change seems positively required, not merely on grammatical 
grounds, but on general and exegetical grounds. It was " the mountain," 
not necessarily " the known mountain" (De Wette), but simply the mountain 
near to which and on the sides of which the multitudes then were gathered ; 
to opog to ifKnaiov, Euthymius. The article is certainly not used indefinitely 
either in Greek (see Hermann, on Viger, p. 703) or Hebrew, and almost cer- 
tainly not here generically (" the mountain country"), opog being always used 
in the N. T. to denote a single mountain, and r) opavrj (Luke i., 30, 65) the 
mountain-country. All the English versions adopt the indefinite article ; the 
Anglo-Saxon, however, has properly retained the definite translation, "THone 
munt." See Bosworth, Anglo-Saxon Gospels, in loc, p. 16. 

t This verse is placed after ver. 5 by Lachmann, Tregelles, and other ed- 
itors on the authority of the Codex Bezag, the Curetonian Syriac, and a def- 
inite comment of Origen ; but it is almost certain that the authority would 
be considered by all sober critics as far too weak to justify any change. 

% One of those very small changes which will often have to be made. There 
is really no reason, except it can possibly be that the insertion of "do" was 
thought to bind "hunger & thirst" more closely together, why there should 
be a change from the translation in ver. 4. Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Gen- 
evan similarly vary as to "which," but not as to the insertion of the " do," 
as in the A. V. 



AMO UNT OF CORRECTIONS PROBABLE. 113 

ceitical. peacemakers : for they shall be called grammatical. 
the sons* of God. 1 Blessed are they children 
which are persecuted for righteous- 
ness' sake: for theirs is the kins-dom 
of heaven. 11 Blessed are ye, when 
men shall revile you, and persecute 
2/ow, and shall say all manner of evil 
against you falsely,f for my sake. 12 
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, J for 
great is your reward in heaven : for 
so persecuted they the prophets which 
were before you. 

13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but 
if the salt have lost his savour, where- 
with shall it be salted ? it is thence- 
forth good for nothing, but to be cast 
out, and to be trodden under foot of 

* Probably a desirable change. The distinction between "children" and 
"sons" may usually be maintained with advantage both in this and in other 
passages of the New Testament. The reference, of course, is to the vtoOema, 
but no argument can be founded on the general translation of this word, as it 
is translated in three ways in the A.V., viz., " adoption" in Rom. viii., 15, 23; 
"adoption of sons," Gal. iv., 5 ; "adoption of children," Eph. i., 5. We 
may remark that there is no need to displace the article, there being at least 
two good grammatical reasons (the nuncupative verb ic\r)9i)(jovrai and the 
absence of the article before Qeov) why it should not be expressed in the orig- 
inal, though presumably latent. It may be added that throughout the para- 
graph the translation of otl is maintained as in the A. V. No doubt on more 
commonly gives the reason ("because"), while yap rather confirms ("for") ; 
but to press such a principle here would be quite needless : comp. ver. 36. 
In ver. 12, where on and yap appear together, the matter is more doubtful. 

t The word "falsely" (-^evdo/jtevoi) would not appear if the translation were 
made from the text of Lachmann or Tischendorf (ed. 7), but its omission is 
very feebly supported, and could not be accepted when the evidence for and 
against the omission is soberly considered. Meyer is evidently influenced by 
purely internal and subjective considerations. These have their just weight 
both here and generally, but few would deem them sufficient to make up for 
the small amount of evidence against the w r ord. 

X We have placed a comma after this word for the sake of more closely 
connecting the clause with the words that follow, and so of thus marking the 
slight change of ratiocination involved in the on and yap, and of avoiding 
the heavier "because." 



114 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

ceitioal. meiL 14 Ye are the light of the world, grammatical. 
A city set* on an hill can not be hid. that is set 
15 Neither do men light a candle, and 
put it under thef bushel, but on thef a a 
candlestick ; and it giveth light unto 
all that are in the house. 16 Even soj Let your light so 
let your light shine before men, that 
they may see your good works, and 
glorify your Father which is in heav- 
en. 

17 Think not that I am come to de- 
stroy the law, or the prophets : I am 
not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 1 8 
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven 
and earth pass, one jot or one tittle 
shall in no wise pass from the law, till 
all be fulfilled. 1 9 Whosoever there- 
fore shall break one of these least 
commandments, and shall teach men 
so, he shall be called least§ in the the least 

* The relative is here omitted with Wicliffe, it being really a principle of 
some importance to maintain, where possible, the translation of the participle 
when thus used without the article, and being thus what is called a secondary 
predication : see Donaldson, New Cratylus, § 301. The relatival or directly 
predicative translation is found in all the older versions (except Wicliffe), and 
even in Alford, Auth. Vers. Revised (in foe), but it is not logically or gram- 
matically correct. What our blessed Lord says is this : "A city can not be 
hid when it lieth on a mountain." The words that most nearly say this, 
with the least possible disturbance of the A.V., are those in the text. No 
doubt both opovg and icsifxevri could be more literally translated, but the prin- 
ciple of minimum change suggests the present words. 

t These two changes seem positively required, if any account is really to 
be taken of the article. The slight difficulty that the reader feels is not so 
much owing to the translation as to the fact that a bushel is not one of those 
articles which are commonly found in houses now. 

t The correction is really required for perspicuity. Nine English readers 
out of ten think that the " so" refers to what follows, and not to what pre- 
cedes. Tyndale, and all the later versions except the Rhemish, coincide with 
the A. V. The Anglo-Saxon and Wicliffe both properly throw the " so" for- 
ward, and make it the first word in the sentence. 

§ So Wicliffe : Tyndale and the remaining versions prefix the definite arti- 



AMO UNT OF CORRECTIONS PROBABLE. 1 1 5 

critical, kingdom of heaven : but whosoever grammatical. 
shall do and teach them,ihe same shall 
be called great in the kingdom of 
heaven. 20 For I say unto you, That 
except your righteousness shall ex- 
ceed the righteousness of the scribes 
and Pharisees, ye shall in no case en- 
ter into the kingdom of heaven. 

21 Ye have heard that it was said 
to* them of old time, Thou shalt not by 
kill: and whosoever shall kill shall be 
in danger of the judgment. 22 But I 
say unto you, That whosoever is angry 
Many ancient with his brother without a causef shall 

authorities omit -, . -. n , , . 1 n 

without a be in danger 01 the judgment: and 
whosoever shall say to his brother, 
Raca, shall be in danger of the coun- 
cil : andj whosoever shall say, Thou but 
fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. 

23 If therefore§ thou bring thy gift to Therefore if 

cle. Consistency seems to require the omission — " shall be called great . . . . 
shall be called least." 

* The translation here adopted is not perfectly certain, the ablavital use 
("by them") being grammatically defensible (see Winer, Gramm., § 31, 10, 
p. 275, ed. Moulton ; Meyer, Kommentar, in loc), but not exegetically prob- 
able, the clause "but I say unto you," ver. 22, seeming to stand in such clear 
parallelism to the preceding words. The Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, and all the 
English versions adopt the dative : so also the margin. There seems, then, 
full reason for the change. 

t The words "without a cause" are very doubtful. The Vatican and Si- 
naitic MSS. , supported by several versions, omit ; the remaining uncial MSS. , 
with the Old Latin, Syriac, and Coptic versions, retain the words. In a case 
of such clear doubt, it would seem right to leave the words in the text, but 
to notice in the margin the doubtfulness of the reading. 

X This change is necessary for consistency. There can be no reason for 
translating the de by "and" in one clause, and "but" in the next, when the 
first four words in both clauses are the same. The Genevan and Rhemish 
alone adopt "and." The rest agree with the Authorized Version. 

§ This change might seem at first sight needlessly minute. It is, however, 
very desirable to avoid, as far as possible, giving ovv the strong illative force 
which the position of " wherefore" at the beginning of the sentence certainly 



116 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

critical. t he altar, and there remember* that r ^mbtSst AL ' 
thy brother hath ought against thee ; 
24 Leave there thy gift before the 
altar, and go thy way ; first be recon- 
ciled to thy brother, and then come 
and offer thy gift. 25 Agree with 
thine adversary quickly, whilef thou whiles 
in the way with art with him in the way;J lest at 
any time§ the adversary deliver thee 
to the judge, and the judge deliver 

seems to imply. This, as we shall find in St. Paul's Epistles, is better reserved 
for apa. We are also preserving the same position for the illative particle 
which it occupies in ver. 19. The exegesis of the passage seems also to re- 
quire the subordination of the inference. It was the remembrance of the 
grave punishment that overhangs the unloving and evil-speaking that sug- 
gests the solemn counsel in ver. 23. It does not so much directly follow 
from it as indirectly, and by natural consequence. The older versions pre- 
serve the order in Auth., except the Genevan, which adopts the thoroughly 
correct " if then" (though not always to be pressed), and Rhemish, which here 
adopts "if therefore. " 

* The change to the subjunctive is apparently necessary on the principle 
of a parity of moods in the two clauses. Here again the Rhemish is with the 
change. The remaining versions maintain the indicative; but in the first 
clause Tijndale and Cranmer both preserve the indicative, and so far are con- 
sistent. The somewhat doubtful question as to when the indicative rather 
than the subjunctive should follow " if," is answered succinctly and with very 
good sense by Latham, English Language, § 536, vol. ii., p. 425 (ed. 4). 

f " Whiles,"as an archaic form (see Johnson, Dictionary, ed. Latham, s. v.), 
may be properly changed into the more usual form. All the versions have 
"whiles" except Coverdale, which agrees with the form in the text. 

X This slight transposition is necessitated by the changed order Avhich crit- 
ical considerations seem clearly to require in the original. The emphasis thus 
falls more on the Iv ry bdy, and should be preserved in the translation. The 
place of emphasis in English is frequently at the close of the sentence. See 
Bain, Rhetoric, p. 100. Some valuable remarks on the importance of the 
order in an English sentence will be found in Marsh, English Language, lect. 
xvi., p. 347 seq. 

§ The translation of firjirore is by no means uniform in the A.V., the tem- 
poral adjunct being sometimes preserved in translation (Matt, iv., 6), some- 
times omitted (Matt, vii., 6). As a rough rule, perhaps it may be said that 
where the idea of time is expressed (as here, 'iiog otov) or distinctly implied 
in the sentence, there the longer form should be used ; where it is only lat- 
ent, then the shorter form "lest" will be sufficient. The longer form here 
first appears in Cranmer. 



A M TINT OF CORRECTIONS PR OB ABLE. 1 1 7 

oeitioal. thee to the officer, and thou be cast grammatical. 
into prison. 26 Yerily I say unto 
thee, Thou shalt by no means come 
out thence, till thou hast paid the ut- 
termost farthing. 

27 Ye have heard that it was said* 

.by them of . , Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

A oldtime A J 

28 But I say unto you, lhat whoso- 
ever looketh on a woman to lust after 
her hath committed adultery with her 
already in his heart. 29 Yeaf if thy and 
right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and 
cast it from thee : for it is profitable 
for thee that one of thy members 
should perish, and not that thy whole 
body should be cast into hell. 30 And 
if thy right hand offend thee, cut it 
off, and cast it from thee: for it is 
profitable for thee that one of thy 
members should perish, and not that 

should be cast thy whole body should go\ into 

hell. 31 It hath also§ been said, Who- it hath been 
soever shall put away his wife, let him 

* The reading of the text is supported by very distinctly preponderating 
3vidence. The Curetonian Syriac and Vulgate are among the minority, but 
their evidence can not turn the scale. 

t This is not a certain correction, as perhaps it is nearly as much too strong 
is the A.V. is too weak. It, however, does seem to bring out the meaning, 
that not only must the particular sin be avoided, but even the first motions 
3f it in the heart checked. This is clearly felt by Tyndale and the Genevan, 
in both of which the translation is "therefore." 

% The critical evidence for the text distinctly preponderates. The Rec. 
Text is apparently an emendatory repetition from ver. 29. 

§ Not a certain correction, but still apparently necessary to mark that this 
is a fresh example of the contrast between the old and new dispensation. 
Phe particle ds has here the force which its etymology suggests ("in the 
second place"), and which often marks its use both in the Greek Testament 
ind elsewhere. Compare Donaldson, New Cratylus, § 155, p. 284. The 
:hange from "hath been" to "was" (Alford) does not, in this particular case, 
seem necessary. 



118 ELLIQOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

critical. gj ve h er a wr iting of divorcement, grammatical. 
32 But I say unto you, That whoso- 
ever shall put away his wife, saving 
for the cause of fornication, causeth 
her to commit adultery : and whoso- 
ever shall marry her when* divorced, that is 
committeth adultery. 

33 Again, ye have heard that it 
hath been said to them of old time, by 
Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but 
shalt perform unto the Lord thine 
oaths. 34 But I say unto you, Swear 
not at all ; neither by heaven, for it is 
God's throne : 35 Nor by the earth, 
for it is his footstool : neither by Je- 
rusalem, for it is the city of the great 
King. 36 Neither shalt thou swear 
by thy head ; for thou canst not make because 
one hair white or black. 37 But let 
your speechf be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: communication 
whatsoever is more than these cometh for whatsoever 
of evil.! 

* An important correction. The participle has not the article, and must 
not be translated definitely. Whether, however, it should be translated "a 
divorced woman" generally, or as in the text, is by no means certain. The 
most natural view would seem to be that a.7ro\e\vfxlvnv is what grammarians 
call a tertiary predicate, and that thus the reference is to one unlawfully di- 
vorced, as above specified. See De Wette and Meyer, in loc. It must, how- 
ever, always remain an important fact in the great controversy connected 
with this verse, that St. Matthew has not inserted the article. Had he done 
so, it would have been certain that the reference was to the special case above- 
mentioned ; as it is, the utmost that can fairly be said in regard of the exact 
inference to be drawn from the words is — non liquet. 

f Not an important change, but apparently desirable to mark that it was 
oral communication here referred to, and conveying by speech the convictions 
or facts asserted either affirmatively or negatively. Comp. Meyer, in loc. The 
comment of Bengel in reference to the repeated "yea" and "nay" is very 
good; "est rei, sit est dicti: non rei, sit non dicti." Wicliffe gives as the 
translation, " word ;" JRhejnish, " talke." The rest as Auth. 

% On the translation of this word, see the notes on chap, vi., 13. 



A M UNT OF CORRECTIONS PR OB ABLE. 119 

ceitical. 38 Ye have heard that it hath been grammatical. 

said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth 
for a tooth. 39 But I say unto you, 
That ye resist not evil: but whoso- 
ever shall smite thee on thy right 
cheek, turn to him the other also. 
40 And if any man will sue thee at 
the law, and take away thy coat, let 
him have thy cloke also. 41 And 
whosoever shall compel thee to go a 
mile, go with him twain. 42 Give to 
him that asketh thee, and from him 
that would* borrow of thee turn not 
thou away. 

43 Ye have heard that it hath been 
said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, 
and hate thine enemy. 44 ButT t say 

bless them unto you, Love your enemies,f r and 

that curse '^ 

you, 

to them that 



', do good pray for them which A persecute you : 



hate you, 45 That ye may be the sonsj of your children 
\tfyou f aud Father which is in heaven: for he 
maketh his sun to rise on the evil and 
good,§ and sendeth rain on the just on the good 

* Attention may be called to this translation of tov QkXovra. It can hardly 
3e doubted that this form "would," which, strictly considered, implies con- 
ingent determination (see Bain, English Grammar, p. 104), approaches more 
learly and idiomatically to the meaning of the original than any other ex- 
Dression. The translation "that desireth" (Alford) is heavy, and better suit- 
ed to the stronger form fiovXo/Aai: "that wisheth" is weak; and "that is 
billing" too purely independent of all latent purpose to suit, at any rate, the 
present passage. 

t This is one of the many cases in which the two or three oldest MSS. , 
with the best cursives and some few versions of high character, are opposed 
to the Codex Bezse, supported by all the second-class uncial MSS. and many 
versions. Nearly all modern critics, in both cases in this verse, agree with 
the older witnesses, and adopt the shorter reading. 

t See note on ver. 9. 

§ Here a very rigidly accurate translation would perhaps mark the absence 
of the article "on evil men and good" (comp. Wicliffe "on good and evil 
men"), and similarly in the next clause. This, however, would seem, to be 



1 20 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
critical. anc i unjust. 46 For if ye love them grammatical. 

d J on the unjust 

which love you, what reward have ye ? 
do not even the publicans the same?* 

47 And if ye salute your brethren 
only, what do ye more than others ? 

publicans so ? do not even the heathen the sa me ? 

48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as 
your Father which is in heaven is 
perfect. 

CHAPTER VI. 

1 Take heed that ye do not your 
aims righteousnessf before men, to be 

seen of them: otherwise ye have no 
reward of your Father which is in 
heaven. 2 When therefore}; thou doest Therefore when 
alms, do not sound a trumpet before thine alms 
thee, as the hypocrites do in the syn- 
agogues and in the streets, that they 
may have glory of men. Verily I say 
unto you, They have their reward. 
3 But when thou doest alms, let not 
thy left hand know what thy right 
hand doeth ; 4 That thine alms may 
be in secret: and thy Father which 

unnecessary, the general sense being expressed fully and fairly by the text, 
especially when the repetition of the preposition is dispensed with. The evil 
and good, and the just and unjust, are here considered as a whole class to 
whom the benefits are equally vouchsafed. See above, p. 114, note. 

* The best critical editors here read ovriog, but, as it would seem, not on 
distinctly sufficient evidence. In the next verse the balance is much more 
decided, the Vatican, Sinaitic, and Codex Bezas being all on the same side. 

t This is a textual change in which the state of the critical evidence is 
much about the same as in chap, v., 44. All the best modern editors adopt 
the reading in the text : iXtr}noavvnv was a very natural gloss. 

% Change made on the same principle as in chap, v., 23. The insertion 
of "thine" in italics in the A. V. is clearly unnecessary ; see below, ver. 3. 
It is found in Tyndale and the Genevan, but not in Cranmer nor in the 
Rhemish. 



AMOUNT OF CORRECTIONS PROBABLE. 



121 



seeth in secret himself* shall rewardf grammatical. 
thee A 4 

5 And when ye pray, ye shall 
not be as the hypocrites are: for 
they love to pray standing in the 
synagogues and in the corners of the 
streets, that they may be seen of men. 
Verily I say unto you, They have their 
reward. 6 But thou, when thou pray- 
est, enter into thy closet, and when 
thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy 
Father which is in secret; and thy 
Father which seeth in secret shall re- 
A openiy. ward thee .. 7 But when ye pray, 
use not vain repetitions, as the hea- 
then do : for they think that they 
shall be heard for their much speak- 
ing. 8 Be not ye therefore like unto 
them : for your Father knoweth what 
things ye have need of, before ye ask 
him. 9 After this manner therefore 
pray ye: Our Father which art in 
heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be 

* The reading is here very doubtful. On the whole, due regard being 
had to the principles of the above revision, to the state of the evidence, and 
to the possibility of a conformation to ver. 18, it seems best to retain the pro- 
noun. 

t The change here to "requite" (Alford) is unnecessary. No doubt "re- 
ward" is now commonly referred to the idea of repaying for good, and has 
lost its neutral sense of simple requital : with passages, however, such as 
1 Sam. xxiv., 17, before us, it does not seem necessary to disturb the familiar 
words. Here again is a case in which the principle of least possible change 
seems to influence our decision. 

% The omission of "openly" seems consistent with the principles of this 
revision. The three great MSS. (observe that the Alexandrian is deficient 
throughout the portion now before us) are in favor of the omission both here 
and in ver. 6, and are supported by valuable cursive MSS. and several im- 
portant versions. The best critical editors also agree in the omission. 

Nir 



122 ELLICOTT ON RE VISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

cbitical. done, as in heaven so also upon earth * . ®^£ A Ji j^ o 

x 111 Cartn. US It co 

v 11 Give us this day our daily bread. in heaven. 

12 And forgive us our debts, as we 
we forgive also have forgive nf our debtors. 

13 And lead us not into temptation, 
A For thine is but deliver us from evil. J A 14 For 

the kingdom, .„ n ., . , ' ^ 

and the power, if ye forgive men their trespasses, 
for ever! Amen.' your heavenly Father will also for- 
give you : 15 But if ye forgive not 
men their trespasses, neither will your 
Father forgive your trespasses. 

16 Moreover when ye fast, be not, 
' as the hypocrites, of a sad counte- 

* It may be thought bold to change such familiar words, but the original 
Greek seems positively to require it, the clause ytvrjOrjroj to OeXrjixd gov being 
thus preserved in more solemn parallelism with the two preceding clauses. 
The defining words do not thus, as in Auth., form in effect a substantive part 
of the whole clause, but preserve their true logical position. The transition 
to the second part of the holy prayer and to our earthly needs is thus also 
better defined. This, however, is one of those changes which, if made by any 
committee, would provoke the most unfavorable criticism. It is well for us, 
then, to have samples of such corrections before us, that we may make up our 
minds on the subject beforehand, and not be swayed by the sudden prejudices 
of the time when they first appear. Some striking remarks on these three 
great clauses and their import, considered logically, will be found in an arti- 
cle by Hanne, in the Jahrbucher fur Deutsche Theologie for 1866, p. 507 seq. 

t The reading is very .doubtful on account of the division of authorities, 
some reading a<pitntv, some dtyiofiev, and the remaining (among which are 
the Vatican, Sinaitic, and Dublin Rescript) the perfect, d^Kafiev. We adopt 
this with the chief critical editors. In the case of the concluding words of 
the verse, the preponderance for the omission is a little more distinctly de- 
fined, there being no division among the authorities on either side in favor 
of any third reading (as above), and the Old Latin, Coptic, and Vulgate join- 
ing with the three most ancient MSS. in favor of the omission. These words, 
however, it may again be observed, will not be surrendered without much 
controversy. 

X Here it is perhaps best not to introduce a change, although the balance 
of exegetical evidence seems in favor of the masculine, '' from the Evil One. " 
Consider Rom. xvi., 20 ; Eph. vi., 16 ; 2 Thess. iii., 3 ; 1 John iii., 8 ; and 
compare above, chap, v., 37. In both these cases it is well worthy of notice 
and consideration that the great Greek interpreters are in favor of the mascu- 
line. Under any circumstances, the alternative rendering ought to be placed 
in the margin. 



AMOUNT OF CORRECTIONS PROBABLE. 123 

critical, nance : for they disfigure their faces, grammatical. 
that they may appear unto men to 
fast. Verily I say unto you, They 
have their reward. 17 But thou, 
when thou fastest, anoint thine head, 
and wash thy face; 18 That thou 
appear not unto men to fast, but unto 
thy Father which is in secret : and 
thy Father which seeth in secret, 
A openiy. shall reward thee ..* 

19 Lay not up for yourselves treas- 
ures upon thef earth, where moth and earth 
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves 
break through and steal : 20 But lay 
up for yourselves treasures in heaven, 
where neither moth nor rust doth cor- 
rupt, and where thieves do not break 
your through nor steal. 21 For where t h y% 

your treasure is, there will thine heart be 

also. 22 The light of the body is the 
eye : if therefore thine eye be single, 
thy whole body shall be full of light. 
23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole 
body shall be full of darkness. If 
therefore the light that is in thee 

* The weight of authority for the omission is here more decided than in 
verse 4 and verse 6, and the omission may be deemed a certain correction. 

t Accuracy seems to require this very trifling insertion. It is always a 
safe rule to observe the article in translation when it appears after a preposi- 
tion. Prepositions, as is well known, so often obliterate the article (see Winer, 
Grammar, § 19, p. 157, edit. Moulton), that when it does appear it may safely 
be pressed. The true interpretation of the difficult words did. rfjg rsicvoyovLaQ, 
1 Tim. ii., 15, seems to depend on a due recognition of this principle. 

X These two corrections are not quite certain, though very probable. Here 
the Codex Bezas and Dublin Rescript both have lacunas. We are thus left 
with the Vatican and Sinaitic against the great bulk of the second-class uncial 
MSS. The strong support given by the versions to the two older MSS. , and 
the agreement with them of the valuable cursives marked 1 and 28, seem to 
justify the correction. Comp. verse 1 7 for a like change to the singular. 



1 24 ELLICOTT ON BEVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

critical, be darkness, how great is that dark- grammatical. 
ness ! 

24 No man can serve two masters : 
for either he will hate the one, and 
love the other ; or else he will hold to 
the one, and despise the other. Ye • 
can not serve God and mammon. 25 
Therefore I say unto you, Be not care- Take no thought 
ful* for your life, what ye shall eat, 
and what ye shall drink ; nor yet for or 
your body, what ye shall put on. Is 
not the life more than the meat, and meat 
the body than the raiment ? 26 Be- raiment 
hold the fowls of the air ; thatf they for 
sow not, neither do they reap, nor 
gather into barns ; yet your heavenly 
Father feedeth them. Are ye not 
much better than they? 27 Which 
of you by being careful can add one taking thought 
cubit unto his lifetime ?J 28 And stature? 
why are ye careful for raiment ? Con- take ye thought 
sider the lilies of the field, how they 
grow ; they toil not, neither do they 
spin. 29 And yet I say unto you, 

* On the reasons for this change, see the remarks of Trench On the Auth. 
Version, p. 13. In this same verse there is some doubt as to the reading. 
The evidence seems in favor of Rec. (/eat t'i Tzir)Tt), but in the translation of 
the text so taken the A.V. is slightly inaccurate. In the concluding words 
the introduction of the two definite articles is required on the principles of 
reasonable accuracy. 

t The word in the original is on, and has obviously here not its causal, but 
its explanatory meaning " that." As Meyer observes, it is, in effect, equiva- 
lent to etc Ikuvo on. Comp. John ii., 18 ; 2 Cor. i., 18, al. 

% Clearly required by the context. The idea of supporting life specially by 
means of food in ver. 25 is expanded in ver. 26, and continued in its more 
general form in the present verse. All the English versions, however, adopt 
the current view. So also Bengel, whose comment on Luke xii. , 26 is " hanc 
(scil. longitudinem setatis) nemo cubitis metitur. " Here again the alternative 
rendering should be put in the margin. 



AMOUNT OF CORRECTIONS PROBABLE. 125 

critical. That even Solomon in all his glory grammatical. 
was not arrayed like one of these. 

30 But,* if God SO clothe the grass Wherefore, 

of the field, which to day is, and to 
morrow is cast into the oven, shall he 
not much more clothe you, O ye of 
little faith ? 31 Be not therefore care- Therefore take 
ful, saying, What shall we eat? or, uc 
What shall we drink? or, Where- 
withal shall we be clothed? 32 For 
after all these things do the Gentiles 
seek : for your heavenly Father know- 
eth that ye have need of all these 
things. 33 But seek ye first the 
kingdom of God, and his righteous- 
ness; and all these things shall be 
added unto you. 34 Be not therefore Take therefore 
carefulf for the morrow : for the mor- n ° 

A the things of row shall be Careful for A itself. Suf- shall take 

ficient unto the day is the evil ° ug 
thereof. 

CHAPTER VII. 

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged. 

2 For with what judgment ye judge, 

ye shall be judged: and with what 

measure ye mete, it shall be measured 

A again. to youJ . 3 And why beholdest 

* The strong ratiocinative "wherefore" of Auth., though found in Tynd., 
Cranmer, Gen., al., can not properly be maintained as the translation of the 
simple 8e. Wicl. and Rhem. adopt " and," but the copula is here too weak. 

f The translation in the text is somewhat heavy., but is adopted to preserve 
a consistent rendering of fiepifxvav throughout the paragraph. Tyndale and 
the older versions translate, alike easily and forcibly, " Care not then for the 
morrow, but (for, Cov., Gen.) let the morrow care for itself." Perhaps this 
may be thought one of the cases where idiomatic force may set aside verbal 
consistency. 

$ There is here no doubt whatever that ixerpnOrjcrerai, not dvrijuerpj^crcrat, 



126 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF TEE NEW TESTAMENT. 



GRAMMATICAL. 



ceitical. t h ou t h e mote t i iat i s i Q thy brother's 
eye, but considerest not the beam 
that is in thine own eye ? 4 Or how 
wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me 
pull out the mote out of thine eye ; 
and, behold, the beam is in thine own a 
eye ? 5 Thou hypocrite, first pull* cast 
out the beam out of thine own eye ; 
and then shalt thou see clearly to pull cast 
out the mote out of thy brother's eye. 
6 Give not that which is holy unto 
the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls 
before swine, lest they trample them 
under their feet, and turn again and 
rend you.f 

' 7 Ask, and it shall be given you ; 
seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it 
shall be opened unto you. 8 For ev- 
ery one that asketh receiveth; and 
he that seeketh findeth ; and to him 
that knocketh it shall be opened. 
9 Or what man is there of you, of 
A if ask whom A his son shall ask bread,J 
will he give him a stone? 10 Or if 
he ask he also ask a fish, will he give him a 

is the true reading. The latter has only the support of cursive manuscripts 
and a few Greek and Latin fathers. . 

* It clearly can not be desirable to vary the translation of tK^aXelv in two 
consecutive verses. 

t We have removed the mark of paragraph in the usual editions, and con- 
nect verse 6 with verse 5, but it may be admitted that the exact connection 
of thought does not seem perfectly clear. Perhaps the verse has a limiting 
character : Do what may be done to improve others with all humility, but 
do not carry it to such an excess that it would only too clearly be a very 
provocative to profanation and rejection. See Meyer, Kommentar, in loc. 

X The reading is doubtful. The critical balance seems in favor of the 
omission of lav, and the change of aiTrjay into airman. The translation is 
adjusted accordingly} the particle "of" being introduced to make the regimen 
a little more perspicuous. 



AMOUNT OF CORRECTIONS PROBABLE. . 127 

critical, serpent? 11 If ye then, being evil, grammatical. 
know how to give good gifts unto 
your children, how much more shall 
your Father which is in heaven give 
good things to them that ask him ? 
12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do 
ye even so to them: for this is the 
law and the prophets. 

13 Enter ye in through the narrow* at the strait 
gate : for wide is the gate, and broad 
is the way, that leadeth to destruc- 
tion, and many there be which go in 
thereat: 14 Becausef narrow is the strait 
gate, and straitened is the w r ay, which narrow 
leadeth unto life, and few there be 
that find it. 15 ButJ beware of false Beware 
prophets,which come to you in sheep's 
clothing, but inwardly are ravening they are 
wolves. 16 Ye shall know them by 
their fruits. Do men gather grapes 
fromg thorns, or figs from thistles ? of of 

* The corrections in this and the following verse are for the sake of making 
the meaning more distinct ; but it may be doubted whether the old render- 
ing, which is that of Tyndale and the early versions, would not be maintained 
in any revision. At the same time, we are enabled by the change to give 
re9Xifji[jLsvr], verse 14, a much more accurate rendering. 

f The reading is here very doubtful. The second hand of the Vatican 
MS. and the Codex Ephremi read ri (how!) ; the first hand of the Vatican 
and the Sinaitic, on, the Alexandrian MS. (as has been already observed) and 
Codex Bezse being defective. This would seem clearly a case where the 
principle of least possible change might be allowed to decide the question. 

X The omission in translation of the particle Sk tends to obscure the con- 
nection. It would seem that verse 15 is to be connected in thought with 
verse 14, and that the current of the divine thought is, " If so, then beware of 
those who might add to your difficulties in finding the true path." Bengel's 
comment is " dum ipsi datis operam ut intretis, cavete eos qui claudunt." 
At the close the pronoun "they" is perhaps omitted with advantage. The 
outward garb and inward nature are thus kept more closely in antithesis. 

§ A slight change, but probably necessary. In some passages, the use of 



1 2 8 ELLICOTT ON BE VISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

ckitical. J 7 Even so every good tree bringeth geammatical. 
forth good fruit ; but the corrupt tree a 
bringeth forth evil fruit. 1 8 A good 
tree can not bring forth evil fruit, 
neither can a corrupt tree bring 
forth good fruit. 19 Every tree that 
bringeth not forth good fruit is 
hewn down, and cast into the fire. 
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall 
know them. 

21 Not every one that saith unto 
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
kingdom of heaven ; but he that do- 
eth the will of my Father which is 
in heaven. 22 Many will say to me 
in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not have we not 
prophesy* in thy name? and in thy pi p e 
name cast out devils? and in thy have cast 
name do many wonderful works ? 23 done 
And then will I profess unto them, I 
never knew you : depart from me, ye 
that work iniquity. 

24 Therefore whosoever heareth 
these sayings of mine, and doeth 
them, I will liken him unto a wise 

the particle "of" as synonymous with "from" causes considerable difficulty 
to the general reader. See especially Luke xvi. , 9. 

* The futurity implied in this verse (fmkpav hceivnv inti rrjv rrjg Kpiaeojg, 
Euthym.) seems to suggest an alteration, that marks, somewhat more dis- 
tinctly than the ordinary compound perfect, that what is here referred to is 
past, and belongs to the past. It may be here conveniently observed that 
"did," when thus used, is purely aoristic and equivalent when united with 
any verb to the English preterite. This use of ' ' do" and ' ' did" for the present 
and preterite respectively, will commonly be observed in three forms of sen- 
tences as particularly serviceable, viz. , emphatic, interrogative, and negative. 
In the last case especially this compound form will be found very serviceable. 
See especially the clear remarks and distinctions in Pickbourn, Dissertation on 
the English Verb, p. 25 seq. ; 37 seq. (London, 1789),' and compare Latham, 
English Language, § 510, vol. ii., p. 391 seq. 



AM TINT OF CORRECTIONS PR OB ABLE. 129 

ceitical. maDj w hich built his house upon the* grammatical. 
rock: 25 And the rain descended, 
and the floods came, and the winds 
blew, and beat upon that house ; and 
it fell not : for it had beenf founded was 
upon the rock. 26 And every one a 
that heareth these sayings of mine, 
and doeth them not, shall be likened 
unto a foolish man, which built his 
house upon the sand: 27 And the 
rain descended, and the floods came, 
and the winds blew, and beat upon 
that house; and it fell: and great 
was the fall of it. 28 And it came 
to pass, when Jesus had ended these 
sayings, the multitudes^; were aston- people 
ished at his doctrine: 29 For he 
taught them as one having authority, 
the and not as their§ scribes. 

* Not a certain correction, it being somewhat doubtful whether the article 
with this particular substantive can be used as idiomatically in reference to 
class and category as with the more familiar substantive "sand," ver. 26. 
It is really a matter of individual judgment. That the English article can 
be used generally we well know ; the question, however, is whether it can be 
here idiomatically so used with this particular substantive. It may also be 
observed, as a general and safe rule for a translator, that in English the defi- 
nite article (which, in fact, is really the unemphatic form of the demonstrative 
" that :" Bain, English Grammar, p. 34) is particularly definite, and does com- 
monly and most naturally refer to something well known and defined pre- 
viously. Comp. Latham, English Language, § 368, vol. ii., p. 208. 

t The change to the pluperfect seems required, as emphasizing the ante- 
cedent fact. It will always be observed, however, that this tense is one of 
the least flexible of our tenses, and often gives a rigidity to a clause, which, 
in a general narrative especially, mars the idiomatic ease of expression. It 
is not clear that this is not the case here. 

% Clearly desirable to mark what we know is so constantly expressed in the 
Gospels, viz., that our blessed Lord's teaching attracted, and produced great 
effect upon, the masses of the people. Comp. Luke xii., 1 ; Mark xi.,18, al. 

§ The evidence in favor of the reading in the text seems distinctly prepon- 
derant. Not only the Vatican and Sinaitic Manuscripts, but the best cursives 



1 30 ELLIOOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Such would seem to be the amount of revision actually 
necessary, on the principles already laid down, in the impor- 
tant portion of Scripture on which we have been dwelling. 
Such, too, would probably be the average amount of correc- 
tion that would be required in the Gospels generally, in a re- 
vision of the nature contemplated. The differences of read- 
ing are more and more important than at first might have 
been expected, but the exegetical changes few and unimpor- 
tant. In the 111 verses we have 19 changes due to textual 
considerations, an amount not in excess of the estimated 
standard ; but in these same verses the changes due to gram- 
mar and exegesis are only (if we count each single correction) 
about 56, or just one half of the estimated maximum amount 
for the New Testament generally. 

We now pass to a very different portion of Scripture, in 
which the balance is the other way, and in which the amount 
of the grammatical corrections is considerable, and their 
general character of by no means slight importance. 

We subjoin, as before, a few notes; but as the changes are 
numerous and in many cases self-explanatory, it does not seem 
desirable to comment on every individual alteration. The 
tenor of all is the same — not only to be faithful to the orig- 
inal, but also to set forth the reasoning more clearly to the 
general hearer and reader. 

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, CHAP. V. 

critical. i Being j ustified therefore* by faith , T ^f f ^ A e TI ^ 

we have letushavef peace with God through justified 

and the great majority of ancient versions (always very important witnesses) 
all concur in the insertion of the pronoun. 

* The transposition (1) gives the requisite prominence to diKaiuiOevreg, and 
marks the close connection with the concluding words of the preceding chap- 
ter. It also (2) places the " therefore" in that subordinated position in which 
it seems more nearly to express that idea of retrospective reference which is 
usually implied by the ovv. See Klotz, Devarius, vol. ii., p. 717. It may be 
doubted whether, in the stricter logic of these epistles, accuracy does not re- 
quire that the "therefore" should not give way in many places to the more 
approximately correct "then." See, however, the comments on p. 112. 

f The weight of evidence is so decidedly in favor of the reading of the text 



A M UNT OF CORRECTIONS PR OB A BLU. 131 

ckitioal. our L or( i Jesus Christ: 2 Through grammatical. 
whom also we have had our* access have access 
by faithf into this grace wherein we 
stand ; and we glory in the hope of rejoice hope 
the glory of God. 3 And not only 
so, but we glory in Our| tribulations tribulations 
also : knowing that tribulation work- 
eth patience; 4 And patience, ap- 
proval ;§ and approval, hope : 5 And experience (Ms) 
hope maketh not ashamed; because 

that we seem bound to adopt the hortatory t'xw/uy rather than the simply de- 
claratory exofJ-tv. The liability to change of vowels even in the best manu- 
scripts, technically called itacism, must, however, always leave us — especially 
in such passages as the present, where the internal arguments for the less sup- 
ported reading are very strong — rather in doubt as to the positive correctness 
of our decision. The whole subject of the orthography of the New Testament 
requires very careful reconsideration. See Winer, Grammar, § 5, p. 54 seq., 
edit. Moulton ; and compare Scrivener, Introduction to the New Testament^ 
p. 417. 

* The perfect must be marked. It is not merely " habemus," but " habui- 
mus, " viz. , when we became Christians, and now while we are such. As Ben- 
gel rightly observes, " praeteritum, in antitheto ad habemus, ver. 1." Cranmer 
marks this but very paraphrastically. The two other changes in the verse 
are slight, but necessary. It seems better to retain the same translation both 
for did and for the verb Kavx^aBai in consecutive verses. There is no doubt 
an inconvenience in the use of the same word "glory" in two different senses 
in the same clause; but "boast" is an unpleasant translation, and "rejoice" 
is not exact. The insertion of the article before ' ' hope" (in the Greek it is 
latent, and elided by the preposition) seems also to clear up the meaning. 
Comp. Heb. iii.,6. 

f The reading is doubtful ; the words ' ' by faith" being omitted by the 
Vatican MS. and authorities of considerable weight. The addition of the 
Sinaitic to the retaining authorities, and the preponderance of the versions, 
seem to justify our maintenance of the Received Text. 

X The article seems very clearly to have here its pronominal force — "der 
(uns betreffenden) Leiden," Meyer. So also in verse 11, and not uncommon- 
ly in this epistle and elsewhere. Few points require more judgment than the 
adoption of this pronominal translation in English. The context alone must 
be our guide. 

§ This translation of doKi/xr) is suggested by the context. The word may 
refer to what is antecedent ("proving," Wicl. ; "probation," Rhemish, fol- 
lowing the Vulgate), or, as here, to the resultant state, and to what is conse- 
quent. Bengel, with his usual acuteness,, observes, " doKtfir} est qualitas ejus 
qui est Soicifxog." 



132 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

ceitioal. the love of God is shed abroad in our grammatical. 
hearts by the Holy Ghost which was is 
given unto us. 6 For when we were 
yet without strength, in due season* time 
Christ died for the ungodly. V For 
scarcely for a righteous man will any w m one 
one die : yet peradventure for a good 
man some one doth even dare to die. some would 
8 But God commendeth his own love his love 
toward us, in that, while we were yet 
sinners, Christ died for lis. 9 Much 
more then, being now justified by his 
blood, shall we be saved through him we shall be 
from the wrathf to come. 10 For if, wrath r ° m 
when we were enemies, we were rec- 
onciled to God through the death of by 
his Son, much more, being reconciled, 
shall we be saved by his life. 1 1 And we shall 
not only so, but we also glory in joy 
God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
through whom we have now received by 

the reconciliation. atonement 

12 For this cause,]; as by one man wherefore 
sin entered into the world, and by sin, and death by sin 

* The exact meaning of these words is greatly contested, there being at 
least four different shades of meaning that have been assigned to the simple 
words Kara icaipbv. Such being the case, the more exact translation of the 
word Kaipog seems required on the principle of faithfulness. The idea that 
the death of our blessed Lord was verily at the critical time, is thus, perhaps, 
a little more clearly brought out. 

f The article prefixed to bpyrjQ must certainly be noticed in translation. 
This can only be done as in the text, or by translating " God's wrath," the 
insertion being suggested and justified by the antithetical idea in verse 7. 
The change adopted in the text seems to be the simplest. 

X This change seems desirable. In a connection so closely logical as that 
of St. Paul, it is clearly of great importance to maintain, as far as consistent 
with our idiom, a correct translation of the particles of inference and reason- 
ing.- The stronger word "wherefore" (equivalent to "and therefore," ac- 
cording to Bain, English Grammar, p. 67) is best reserved for apa or apa ovv. 



AMO TINT OF CORRECTIONS PROBABLE. 133 



oeitical. death ; and so death passed through* grammatical. 
unto all men, for that all sinned.f 13 have sinned 
For until the law sin was in the 
world: but sin is not imputed when 
there is no law. 14 Nevertheless 
death reigned from Adam to Moses, 
even over them that had not sinned 
after the similitude of the trangres- Adam's transgr. 
sion of Adam, who is the type of him figure 
that was to come. 15 Howbeit not But 
as the trespass,;]; so also is the free offence {Ms) 
gift. For if by the trespass of the through one, 
one, the many died ; much more did Sore the ea ' 
the grace of God, and the gift by 
grace, which is by the one man, Jesus one 
Christ, abound unto the many, 16 man/ 
And not as it was through one that by 
sinned, so is the gift: for the judg- 
ment came of§ one unto condemna- %oas by one to 
tion, but the free gift came of many is 

* It is hardly possible to avoid noticing in translation the carefully chosen 
dirjXOev, especially when following the elafjXQev just above. The pervasive 
power, of death seems here specially marked. 

t The translation of the simple word fyxaprov is here extremely difficult. 
The true idea " omnes peccarunt peccante Adamo" (Bengel) seems to be best 
brought out by the omission of the auxiliary. At the same time, it may be 
admitted that the idea of individual sins (see especially Theodoret, in loc.), 
which it seems also theologically correct to include, is not so distinctly main- 
tained as in the " have sinned" of the older versions. This, then, can not be 
considered by any means a certain correction, though it seems preferable to 
the A. V., and to the "were sinners" of the Five Clergymen. 

% It seems necessary to maintain a careful translation of TrapcnrTiona. The 
translation of A.V. ("offence") does not preserve the latent antithesis to the 
vnaKori that was shown by Christ. Compare ver. 19. 

§ The slight change is to mark the change of preposition. Such alterations 
would not be introduced generally, but in passages such as the present, where 
every word in the inspired original is of doctrinal importance, great accuracy 
would appear to be required. This remark may be extended to many of the 
changes in this very profound and difficult chapter. No part of the New 
Testament is more trying to a reviser. , 



134 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

ceitical. trespasses unto justification. 1 7 For o ^ e M g ATICAL - 
if by the trespass of the one, death one man's 
reigned through the one ; much more by one 
shall they which receive the abun- they abundance 
dance of the grace and of the gift of grace 
righteousness, reign in life through shall reign 
the one, even Jesus Christ. 1 8 Where- by one 
fore, as through one trespass it came* Therefore as by 

7 " ' " ■ . the offence of 

unto all men to condemnation; even one judgment 

■ _ ... , . came upon 

so through one righteous actt it came by the righteous- 

. r. t/» ness of one, t/ie 

UntO all men tO justification 01 llie. free gift came 
_ i j. . i i. V-i. 2»j.i upon all men 

1 9 For as by t the disobedience of the unto • 

. one man's cliso- 

one man, the many were made sinners, bedience many 
even so, by the obedience of the one, so one 
shall the many be made righteous, many 

20 Moreover the law also entered, law entered 
that the trespass might be multiplied, offence abound 
But where sin was multiplied, grace abounded, 

* Here the principle of faithfulness seems to require that as little as possible 
should be imported into the context. Winer suggests the simple introduction 
of the purely neutral <x7re(3r), i. e., " cessit," "the result was" (" the issue was," 
Five Clergymen), and correctly. See Grammar, § 64, 2, b, p. 734, ed. Moul- 
ton. The common supplement is to tcplfxa tyevtro for the first clause, and 
to xapw\aa iyivtTo for the second, but this is interpretation rather than trans- 
lation. 

f On the translation of SiKaiajfia, dacaiou), SimioQ, and Sacaioavvn, see the 
prefatory notes to the translation of this epistle by the Five Clergymen, p. ix. 
seq. 

% Here it does not seem necessary to change the " by" into " through," as 
in verse 18 and elsewhere. It is almost impossible to lay down any rules, 
but it perhaps may be said that though in certain formulae (e. #. /'through 
Jesus Christ"), and in passages where there are clear or even latent distinc- 
tions between direct and mediate agency, there it may be desirable to use 
"by" in reference to the primary agent (Bain, English Grammar, p. 55), and 
"through" in reference to the "causa medians;" but where there are no 
such distinctions, there the A. V. may be retained, unless, as in chap. v. , 1,2, 
consistency suggests the change. To carry out the principle farther than 
this (as in Alford, New Testament, and frequently in the revision of the Five 
Clergymen) is to obliterate so far an idiomatic usage of the preposition which 
was current in our earlier literature, and is, in this particular instance, radi- 
cally to change our version. 



A M UNT OF CORRECTIONS PR OB ABLE. 1 3 5 

critical, did much more abound: 21 That as grammatical. 
sin reigned in death, even so might hath reigned 
grace reign through righteousness 
unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ by 
our Lord. 

CHAPTER VI. 

1 What shall we say then? are 
shall we we to* continue in sin, that grace 
may abound? 2 God forbid. How 
shall we, who diedf unto sin, live any that are dead to 
longer therein ? 3 OrJ know ye not, Know 
that so many of us as were baptized 
into Christ Jesus, were baptized into Jesus Christ 
his death ? 4 We were buried there- Therefore we 
fore with him by our baptism into baptism 
death : that like as Christ was raised raised up 
from the dead by the glory of the 
Father, even so we also should walk 
in newness of life. 5 For if we have 
become united to§ the likeness of his been planted to- 
death, surely|| we shall be also to the we shall e u ' 

* Change to express the deliberative subjunctive (Winer, Grammar, § 41, 
4), the reading of the Textus Receptus, tirifievoiifiev, having only the support 
of cursive MSS., and being probably a conformation in tense to the ipovfiiv 
just before. 

f The change, though trifling, seems necessary, as helping to direct the 
thought to the past epoch of baptism, when the death took place (verse 3). 
The Auth. points more to the continuing state, which is true ;"in baptismo 
et justificatione," Bengel), but not here the prominent idea. 

X In some cases, and in this particular formula, the force of the particle 
seems obliterated. Here, however, the force may be brought out : ' ' Or, if 
ye do not recognize this principle (verse 2), do ye not know, etc." (verse 3). 
See Hartung, Partikellehre, vol. ii., p. 61. 

§ The translation of the A.V. seems actually erroneous, avutyvTog being 
connected with (pixo, not with (pyrevu). In the latter case it would have been 
ovutyvTavroi, the verbal (pvrevrbg being a recognized form. See Plato, Republ. , 
vi.,p. 510. 

|| The emphatic introduction of the contrary aspect by means of the d\\a 



136 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

ckitical. likeness of his resurrection. 6 Know- grammatical. 
ing this, that our old man was cru- is 
cified with him, that the body of sin 
might be destroyed, in order* that we that 
should serve sin no longer. 1 For he £S5d2J" e 
that is dead is made free from sin. freed. 
8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we 
believe that we shall also live with 
him : 9 Knowing that Christ being 
raised from the dead dieth no more; 
death hath no more dominion over 
him. 10 For in thatf he died, he died 
unto sin once : but in that he liveth, 
he liveth unto God. 11 Even soj Likewise 
reckon ye also yourselves to be dead 
indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, 

A ourLord. in Christ Jesus A . 12 Let not sin through j.c. 
therefore reign in your mortal body, 

A it in that ye should obey A the lusts there- 

of. 13 Neither yield ye your mem- 
bers as instruments of unrighteousness 
unto sin : but yield yourselves up to§ unto God 

icai ought to be marked in translation. The formula is noticed and illustrated 
in Klotz, Devarius, vol. ii. , p. 93. 

* The insertion of the two words "in order" renders the passage a little 
clearer, and just calls attention to the change of construction from the par- 
ticle of purpose with the subj. to the favorite N.T. genitival infin. of purpose. 
See Winer, Grammar, § 44, 4. In the remaining words of the verse the more 
usual translation of the emphatically placed firjicsri is adopted, and the em- 
phasis secured by placing it at the close of the sentence. 

+ This is one of the instances in which the A.V. would probably not be 
changed by any revisers who followed the principle of the least possible change. 
It may be observed, however, that o is more probably the cognate accusative 
under the regimen of airidavB, scil."the death that he died," and similarly 
" the life that he liveth." This is a case, then, where this alternative render- 
ing ought certainly to find a place in the margin. See above, ch. iv., p. 116. 

X The application of the principle in verse 10 to the readers is rather ob- 
scured by the " likewise." So, however, Tyndale and the older versions, ex- 
cept Wicliffe and the Rkemish, which follow the ' ' ita" of the Vulgate. 

§ An attempt to mark the change to the more emphasized aorist imperative 



AMOUNT OF CORRECTIONS PROBABLE 



137 



critical. Qod, as alive from the dead, and your grammatical. 

' ' J those that are 

members as instruments of righteous- alive 
ness unto God. 14 For sin shall not 
have dominion over you: for ye are 
not under the law, but under grace, 
shall we 15 What then? are we to sin, be- 

cause we are not under the law, but 
under grace? God forbid. 16 Know 
ye not, that to whom ye yield your- 
selves servants to obey, his servants 
ye are to whom ye obey; whether 
it be of sin unto death, or of obedience whether of 
unto righteousness? 17 But God be 
thanked, that ye once* were the serv- ye were 
ants of sin, but ye obeyed from the have obeyed 
heart that form of doctrine which 
was delivered you.f 18 Now being Being then 
made free from sin, ye were made the became 
servants of righteousness. 19 1 speak 
after the manner of men, because of 
the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye 
yielded your members servants to un- have yielded 
cleanness and to iniquity unto iniqui- 
ty ; even so now yield your members 
servants to righteousness unto sane- holiness. 
tification. 20 For when ye were the 
servants of sin, ye were free in regard from 
toj righteousness. 21 What fruit 

7rapct(TTr](7aT£, "do it at once, and decidedly." This change did not escape 
the vigilant eye of Bengel ; "majorem vim hahet mox aor. 1 Trapacrrrjcare. " 

* This italicized word seems required to mark the emphasis that clearly 
rests on the tjte : the bondage is over ; the chain snapped. 

f Here again we have an alternative rendering, " the form of doctrine 
whereunto ye were delivered," the relative clause admitting two or even 
three forms of resolution. This latter is, for grammatical reasons, the most 
probable (see Meyer, in loc), and has in its favor the authority of Chrysos- 
tom. Here again the margin would have to be used. 

X If an attempt is to be made to express the idiomatic use of the dative t?} 

Oo 



138 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

critical, then had ye at that time in those „ 6 ^mm a tical. 

•> fruit had ye then 

things whereof ye are now ashamed ? 

for the end of those things is death. 

22 But now being made free from 

sin, and made servants to God, ye become 

have your fruit unto sanctification, holiness, 

and the end everlasting life. 23 For 

the wages of sin is death; but the 

o-ift of God is eternal life in Christ through Jesus 

® T Christ 

Jesus our Lord. 

CHAPTER VII. 

1 Know ye not, brethren (for I 
speak to men that know the law), them 
how that the law hath dominion over 
a man as long as he liveth ? 2 For 
the woman which hath an husband 
is bound by the law to her living her husband so 
husband ;* but if the husband be dead, 
she is loosed from the law of her hus- her 
band, 3 Wherefore if, while her hus- so then her 
band liveth, she be joinedf to another married 
man, she shall be called an adulter- 
ess : but if her husband be dead, she 
is free from that law; so that she is 

Sikcliocvvij (see Wirier, Grammar, § 31, 6) it can only be by this adverbial 
phrase. It seems proper to use the form "in regard to" rather than the 
more familiar "in regard of" as the writers of the seventeenth century ap- 
pear to have drawn a distinction in meaning between the two phrases, the 
former implying "in reference to," the latter " by reason of." See the acute 
remarks on these and similar forms of Marsh, On the English Language, lect. 
xxix., p. 660 seq. 

* The translation of the A. V. is here actually erroneous, the position of the 
participle being between the article and the noun, and not, as the A. V. would 
suggest, after the noun, and so a tertiary predicate. See, on the three kinds 
of predicates, Donaldson, New Cratylus, § 301 seq. 

f This is not a correction of any moment, but seems desirable on account 
of the verses that follow, where the expression recurs. Tyndale and the older 
versions translate " couple herself." 



AM UNT OF CORRECTIONS PR OB ABLE. 1 3 9 

critical. no adulteress, though she be joined to ^ r S ATICAI " 
another man. 4 So then,* my breth- Wherefore 
ren, ye also were made dead to the are become 
law by the body of Christ ; that ye 
should be joined to another, even to married 
him who was raised from the dead, is 
that we should bring forth fruit unto 
God. 5 For when we were in the 
flesh, the stirrings of sins, which were motions 
by the law, did work in our members 
to bring forth fruit unto death. 6 But 
now we have been loosedf from the are delivered 
thatbeiug dead law, having diedj unto that 

wherein we were held; so that we that we should 
serve in the newness of the spirit, newness spirit 
and not in the oldness of the letter. 

1 What shall we say then ? Is the 
law sin? God forbid. Howbeit,§ I Nay, 
had not known sin, but by the law : 
for I had not known lust, except the 
law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 
8 But sin, taking occasion || by the 

* The particle ware has more of a consecutive rather than of a strongly 
ratiocinative force. As "wherefore" appears to be a very convenient trans- 
lation for dp ovv, we may perhaps properly interchange in English the first 
words of verse 3 and verse 4. Tyndcde and the older versions had "so then" 
in the former verse, and " even so" in the latter. 

f Here we have a word of great variety of meaning in the N. T., and one 
never easy to translate. The change suggested is not of importance, but 
seems to help the sense. 

X The reading is slightly interesting as showing that our revisers must have 
had before them the edition of Beza, 1565, and here preferred it (see the 
margin) to the 3d edition of Stephens, though it would seem that the reading 
dTroQavovTOQ is only due to an error of Beza's : see Teschendorf, in loc. This 
the A.V. places in the margin. 

§ This change seems positively necessary to bring out the reasoning of the 
passage. The law was certainly not sin, but it stood so far in connection 
with it that it made it known ; dfiapria pkv ovk ioti, yvupiGTiKhq Se a/iapriae. 
— Theoph. 

|| Perhaps it might be a little more accurate, both here and in verse 11, to 



1 40 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
critical, commandment, wrought in me all grammatical. 
manner of coveting. For without the concupiscence. 
law sin is dead. 9 And I was alive was For 
without the law once : but when the 
commandment came, sin revived, and 
I died. 10 And the very command- the commandm. 
ment, which was for life, I found to be ordaimd to 
for death. 11 For sin, taking occa-unto 
sion by the commandment, deceived 
me, and by it slew me. 12 So that Wherefore 
the law indeed is holy, and the com- is 
mandment holy, and just, and good. 

13 Is then that which is good be- was 
come death unto me ? God forbid, made 
But sin became so, that it might ap- But sin, that 
pear sin, working death to me by that in 
which is good ; that by the command- that sin by the 

° . commandment 

ment sin might become exceeding sin- 
ful. 14 For we know that the law is 
spiritual : but I am carnal, sold under 
sin. 15 For what I perform,* that I that which i do 
know not : for what I would, that do 
I not ; but what I hate, that I do. 16 do I. 
But if I do that which I would not, I if then 
consent unto the law that it is good. 

translate "having taken," as the act specified by the particle was prior to 
that of the verb, "took occasion and, etc. ;" but where there is nothing in 
the context that requires the time of the actions to be specially marked, we 
may retain the looser translation. On the translation of participles, when 
thus with finite verbs, see Commentary on Phil, ii., 30. 

* There is nearly an insurmountable difficulty in marking properly in trans- 
lation the shades of meaning in the KarepydZofiai, irpaa<no, and ttoiu>. For 
the first and strongest of the three we may retain the translation adopted by 
Auth., in verse 18 ; but between the two last it seems hopeless to attempt to 
discriminate in English. All that can be said is that 7rpoo-aw is the stronger 
of the two, and appears to involve the idea of accomplishment. Comp. Rom. 
i., 32, and see Buttmann, Lexilogus, § 95, 3, p. 493 (transl.). The various 
changes in this verse are all slight, but seem to bring out the meaning with 
more distinctness than the Authorized Version. 



A M TLYT OF CORRECTIONS PR OB ABLE. 141 

ceitical. Xow then, it is no more I that perform sbammatioau 
it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18 
For I know that there dwelleth not that in me 
in me, that is, in my flesh, any good dwelleth no 
thing : for to will is present with me ; 
A how but A to perform that which is good 

1 find not is not. 19 For the good that I 
would, I do not : but the evil which 
I would not, that I do. 20 Now if I 
do that I would not, it is no more I 
that perform it, but sin that dwelleth do 
in me. 21 I find therefore this* law, then a 
that, when I would do good, evil is 
present with me. 22 For I delight in 
the law of God after the inward man : 
23 But I see a differentf law in my another 
members, warring against the law of 
my mind, and bringing me into cap- 
tivity to the law of sin which is in 
my members. 24 O wretched man 
that I am ! who shall deliver me from 
the body of this death ? 25 I thank 
God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Wherefore with the mind I myself so then 
serve the law of God ; but with the 
flesh the law of sin. 

* It is very rarely that the article can properly be so translated. Here, 
however, it seems required by the idiom of our language. The translation, 
"the law," would also lead to confusion. Tyndale and all the early versions 
(except Wicliffe and the RhemisK) appear to have been misled by this use 
of the words. 

f Here it seems certainly necessary to give the accurate translation of 
irtpoQ. It was not merely aXXog vo/xog, but 'irepog vofxog. See Tittmann, 
Synon. , p. 155 seq. and on the difference between the words, comp. notes on 
Gall, 6. 



142 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
ceitical. i There is therefore now no con- grammatical. 
demnation to them which are in 
A who walk Christ Jesus .. 2 For the law of the 
Sesh%utaft- Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath 
made me free from the law of sin and 
of death. 3 For what the law could and death, 
not do, in that it was weak through 
the flesh, God sending his own Son 
in the likeness of the flesh of sin,f and sinful flesh, 
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 

4 That the righteous demandj of the righteousness 
law might be fulfilled in us, who walk 

not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 

5 For they that are after the flesh do 
mind the things of the flesh; but they 
that are after the Spirit, the things of 

the Spirit. 6 For the mind of the flesh to he carnally 

is death ; but the mind of the Spirit is to he spiritually 

life and peace. 7 Because the mind 

of the flesh is enmity against God ; carnal mind 

for it is not subject to the law of 

God, neither indeed can be. 8 And§ so then 

* There is considerable diversity in the readings of these words in those 
authorities in which they or a part of them are contained. The evidence for 
their complete omission is, however, perfectly distinct and preponderant. 

f Here there seems no sufficient reason for departing from the strict trans- 
lation. For remarks on this form of genitive, see above, p. 109. All the 
older versions adopt the adjectival translation, except Wicliffe andtheis^em- 
ish, both having had the guidance of the Vulgate. 

X The translation of SiKaicofia is by no means easy. The Auth. confounds 
it with dacaiocvvr], the Vulgate ("justificatio") with £i/eatWtc. The etymo- 
logical form of the word, however, precludes both forms of translation, and 
limits us to the meaning adopted in the text. It is worthy of notice that 
Tyndale and Coverdale both recognized the true meaning, though they adopt 
a somewhat paraphrastic translation, viz., "the righteousness required of the 
law." 

§ This correction is necessary for the logic of the passage, as well as for 



AM UNT OF CORRECTIONS PR OB ABLE. \ 4 3 

critical. they that are in the flesh can not grammatical. 
please God. 9 But ye are not in the 
flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that 
the Spirit of God dwell* in you. But Now 
if any man have not the Spirit of 
Christ, he is none of his. 10 And if 
Christ be in you, the body indeed isho&yis 
dead because of sin ; but the Spirit is 
life because of righteousness. 11 But 
if the Spirit of him that raised up 
Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he 
that raised up Christ from the dead 
shall quicken also your mortal bodies also quicken 
byf his Spirit that dwelleth in you. 

the removal of the thoroughly erroneous assumption that 8e can ever be 
equivalent to ovv. The particle has here its usual transitional force. It 
reverts to the abstract statement in the first clause of verse 8, and adds to 
it the illustration of actual experience, the second clause of that verse being 
parenthetical. In English we have probably no better translation than the 
simple "and," but it is confessedly defective, as not marking the transition 
(from the abstract to the concrete) that is brought out by the Si, and very 
fairly expressed by the " autem" of the Vulgate. The only other translation 
"now," as used in our ordinary argumentative English, is too strong, and 
suggests too much the commencement of a fresh argument, whereas we have 
here only the continuation under a slightly changed form of foregoing state- 
ments. These may seem at first mere niceties, but, on sober consideration, it 
will be seen that our appreciation of the mind of the inspired writer depends 
on our due recognition of them. All corrections of this nature are important 
and necessary. 

* It might at first seem doubtful whether this mood is strictly correct. 
Consideration would seem to show that it is, as the particle in the original 
(a7rfjo) involves no decision (Winer, Grammar, § 53, 9), and the case is one 
that may or may not be as stated. In such cases English idiom appears to 
require the subjunctive; wdiere, however, a case is contemplated as actually 
in existence, then the indicative is most usual. See Latham, Engl. Lang. , 
§ 537, and the comments in my notes on 2 Thess. iii., 14 (transl.). As Meyer 
acutely observes, the words carry with them an indirect exhortation to test 
the fact. We retain, then, the subjunctive throughout. On the true mean- 
ing of eiTTsp ("si omnino"), see Klotz, Devarius, vol. ii., p. 308, 528, and the 
very good note of Moulton in Winer, Gramm., I. c, p. 561 seq., on the uses 
of e "nrep and e'iys. 

t This is another interesting proof that the revisers of 1611 were probably 



1 44 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF TEE NEW TESTAMENT. 
critical. 1 2 Wherefore brethren, we are debt- grammatical. 

' Therefore 

ors, not to the flesh, that we should* to 
live after the flesh. 13 For if ye live 
after the flesh, ye mustf die : but if by shall 
the Spirit ye mortify the deeds of the if ye through the 
body, ye shall live. 14 For as many pm 
as are led by the Spirit of God, they 
are the sonsj of God. 15 For ye re- have not re- 
ceived not the spirit of bondage again 
unto fear; but ye received the Spirit to have received 

using the text of the fourth edition of Beza, with some preference over that 
of Stephens. The difference is that the former reads dice with the genitive 
throughout the clause, the latter did with the accusative, which, however, is 
noticed in the margin. As it is extremely difficult to decide which way the 
critical balance turns, we may perhaps rightly fall back upon the Sinaitic 
Manuscript as an arbiter, and so, with that ancient witness, retain the geni- 
tive, and the translation as existing in our own version. 

* See above, notes on chap.vi., 6, note *, p. 136. 

t Necessary to express the explicit words in the original, /xtWfTt diToQv^a- 
Keiv. In the second clause it is the simple future Z,r]GEaQt. The change in 
the remainder of the verse is to remove the emphasis which Auth. seems 
accidentally to give to the "ye" by the prominence of its position. The 
pronoun is not (as is usual in cases of emphasis) expressed in the Greek, and 
the emphasis, it may be added, is obviously on Uveiifxa. 

t There is no necessity, with some revisers, to remove the article. It is 
not found in the Greek, but it may here be properly retained in the English : 
First, because, as has been already hinted, the use of the article in English is 
by no means coincident in all cases with that of the Greek. The presence 
or absence of the article in the case of the latter noun, when, as here, two 
nouns are in regimen, influences its use with the governing noun much more 
distinctly than is the case even in the best English. Secondly, there are 
several cases in Greek, especially, as here, after verbs implying name, exist- 
ence, etc., where the article, to speak strictly, becomes latent. See Bp. Mid- 
dleton, Greek Art., iii., 3, 2, p. 43 (ed. Rose), and Green, Grammar, p. 35 seq., 
where there are some acute remarks on this usage. There are also several 
other cases — e.g., art. with abstract nouns, omission (a) after a preposition, 
(6) when a dependent genitive supplies sufficient definition, (c) before certain 
well-known nouns (see the long list in Winer, Grammar, § 19, p. 149 seq., ed. 
Moulton), in which the idioms of the two languages are not the same, and 
where the reviser must be especially on his guard. We notice this at length, 
as, in our very best specimens of scholarly revision, many instances will be 
found of want of full appreciation of the differences of usage in English and 
Greek as to the absence or the presence of the article. The whole subject 
requires accurate consideration. 



! 



A M TINT OF CORRECTIONS PR OB ABLE. 145 

critical. f adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, grammatical. 
Father. 16 The Spirit itself beareth 
witness with our spirit that we are 
the children of God : 17 And if chil- 
dren, then heirs ; heirs of God, and 
joint-heirs with Christ ; if so be that 
we suffer with him, that we may also be also 
be glorified with him. together. 

18 For I reckon that the sufferings 
of this present time are not worthy 
to be compared with the glory which 
is to be revealed in us. 1 9 For the shall be 
earnest expectation of the creation is creature waiteth 
tarrying* for the revelation of the manifestation 
sons of God. 20 For the creation was creature 
made subject to vanity, not willingly, 
but by reason of him who hath sub- 
jected the same in hope ; 21 Becausef 
the creation itself also shall be deliv- creature 
ered from the bondage of corruption 
into the liberty of the glory of the glorious liberty 
children of God. 22 For we know 
that the whole creation groaneth and 
travaileth in pain together until now. 

* Here the double compound aTreicdsxtTai seems to require, both as to tense 
and meaning, the change suggested in the text. It is, however, a change 
which perhaps is to be considered a so-called improvement rather than a 
correction, and so might be judged by many to be unnecessary. The change 
in the almost technical word that follows is perhaps of more moment, as 
serving to bring out still more clearly the time and circumstances of the man- 
ifestation. Compare Col. iii., 4 ; 1 John iii., 2, al. 

t Here the preponderance of exegetical argument seems in favor of the 
translation "in hope that the creation," etc., the on being not causal, but 
demonstrative. See especially the good note of Meyer, in loc. The same 
remark applies also to the particle in verse 27. This, however, is just one 
of those doubtful passages in which the exegetical preponderance hardly 
seems quite sufficient to justify the substitution in a revision made on princi- 
ples such as the present. The alternative reading should, however, certainly 
be placed in the margin. It is so placed by the translators in verse 27. 



146 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

ceitical. 23 And not only they, but ourselves grammatical. 
also, which have the firstfruits of the 
Spirit, even we ourselves groan with- 
in ourselves, tarrying for the adop- -waiting 
tion, to wit, the redemption of our 
body. 24 For we are saved by hope : 
but hope that is seen is not hope : for 
i what a man seeth, why doth he also yet 
hope for it ? 25 But if we hope for 
that we see not, then do we with pa- 
tience tarry for it. 26 In like manner wait Likewise 

infirmities: the Spirit also helpeth our weak- 
ness:* for we know not what we 
should pray for as we ought: but 
the Spirit itself maketh intercession 

lor us for us with groanings which can not 

be uttered. 27 But he that searcheth And 
the hearts knoweth what is the mind 
of the Spirit, because he maketh in- 
tercession for the saints according to 
the will of God. 

28 Moreoverf we know that all And 
things work together for good to 
them that love God, to them who are 
the called according to his purpose. 
29 Because whom he foreknew, he also Sd foreknow, 

* The reading requires a change from the plural to the singular. As a 
change has thus to be made, we have taken advantage of it to substitute the 
simpler word used by Coverdale (" weakness") for the less easy though scrip- 
turally familiar term "infirmity." 

f This seems a necessary change, it being designed to mark the commence- 
ment of another and third clause illustrative of the main statement. The 
connection would seem to be as follows. The last words of verse 17 form the 
kind of text. Arguments of encouragement and consolation then follow — 
the first, verses 18-25; the second, verses 26, 27; the third, verses 28-31. 
The transitions are, however, so easy that it does not seem desirable to mark 
each one off by a separate paragraph. 



AMOUNT OF CORRECTIONS PROBABLE. 147 

critical, foreordained* to be conformed to the grammatical. 

did predestinate 

image of his Son, that he might be 

the firstborn among many brethren. 

30 And whom he foreordained, them *™™ tinate 

he also called : and whom he called, 

them he also justified: and whom he 

justified, them he also glorified. 

31 What thenf shall we say to then say 
these things ? If God be for us, who 
can be against us? 32 He that 
spared not his own Son, but deliv- 
ered him up for us all, how shall he 
not also with him freely give us all with him also 
- things? 33 Who shall lay any thing 
to the charge of God's elect ?J It is 
God that justifieth ; 34 Who is he 
that condemneth? It is Christ that 
died, yea more, that is risen again, rather, 
who is also§ at the right hand of even 
God, who also maketh intercession 

* Such a change as this would perhaps hardly be adopted by any body of 
revisers. Still, it does seem desirable to remove a word of theological con- 
troversy when a simpler and better word is at hand. It seems also best to 
preserve the simply aoristic translation throughout the pronoun. In regard 
of the preceding pronoun it might perhaps be clearer if we adopted the longer 
form "those whom," as in some of the earlier versions; but this is one of 
those many cases where, the meaning being quite plain, the A.V. may be left 
untouched. 

f This slight change of position seems desirable as marking the commence- 
ment of the paragraph, and the statement of logical consequence which now 
follows. 

% The exact punctuation of this passage, and the relation of the clauses to 
each other, is much contested. Perhaps the most probable punctuation is, 
"Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? God is he that 
justifieth, who is he that condemneth ?" In what follows the term ducaiwv 
seems to have at once introduced the mention of the name of the Justifier, 
which thus appears in an appended clause : "As regards Christ, he it is verily 
who died," etc. Then follows the noble and triumphant question in verse 35. 

§ This trivial change seems required to continue evenly the climax. The 
" even" rather tends to import a thought not in the context. 



148 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
critical. f or us> 35 ^ho s ^ a n separate us grammatical. 
from the love of Christ ? shall tribu- 
lation, or distress, or persecution, or 
famine, or nakedness, or peril, or 
sword? 36 Even* as it is written, As 
For thy sake are we killed all the we are 
day long ; we are accounted as sheep 
for the slaughter. 37 Yet,f in all Nay, 
these things we are more than con- 
querors through him that loved us. 
38 For I am persuaded, that neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor princi- 

principaiities, palities, nor things present, nor things 

nor powers, 

northings to come, nor p o w e 1' s, 39 .Nor 
height, nor depth, nor any other 
creature,}; shall be able to separate 
us from the love of God, which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord. 

The amount and nature of the corrections in the foreofoino; 
Result of the portion is, as we have already observed, consid- 
whoie. erable on the right-hand margin, but inconsid- 

erable on the left. The changes due to textual revision in 

* The two changes in this verse apparently help the general context. They 
again stand on the debatable ground of being merely "improvements;" but, 
being small changes, and not appearing in any way to interfere with the 
rhythm of the verse, they perhaps may appear. The second just hints at the 
change offenses in the original. An aoristic translation of iXoyiadnfitv (com- 
pare verse 24) would seem to be an overcorrection, as tending to turn the 
reader's thoughts more definitely to the past, as the past, than the context, 
requires. 

+ Here it seems clearly necessary to preserve unambiguously (the " nay" is 
rather of doubtful meaning) the contrast specified in this verse: "Though 
thus persecuted, yet," etc. In some of the older versions "nevertheless" is 
adopted. This, however, seems here a little too heavy. 

X The translation "created thing" would make the meaning more plain; 
but change is perhaps not necessary. The student may be reminded that 
the difference between verbals terminating in -<rig and -/na is, as in this word, 
sometimes obliterated in the N. T. Compare notes on Phil. iv. , 6. 



AMOUNT OF CORRECTIONS PROBABLE. 149 

the 108 verses are only 11, or much below the average; but 
the amount of grammatical corrections is very decidedly 
above it, the number of such changes being about 170 in all. 
When we combine, however, these results with those derived 
from the former portion of Scripture, and observe the actual 
amount in the 219 verses, we have finally 30 changes owing 
to critical considerations, and about 226 changes which seem* 
to be required, on the principles already laid down, by gram- 
mar and general interpretation ; or, in other words, not quite 
the estimated amount of one correction for every five verses 
in the matter of criticism and text, and slightly more than 
one for every verse in respect of general revision. 

We are now at length able to proceed onward, and are in 
a position fairly to test the justice and cogency of current 
objections to revision. We now know approximately the 
extent to which revision would probably extend, and are 
certainly justified in declining to answer objections which 
are founded on the assumption that revision would be so 
great as distinctly to alter the tone and character of the 
present version. Six changes in every five verses, and prob- 
ably three at least of these of a very slight kind, could by no 
stretch of imagination produce the results which are so justly 
deprecated. 

As will be seen in the next chapter, the resultant question 
will really be whether the arguments derived from consid- 
erations of the faithfulness due to God's Word do fairly pre- 
ponderate over those which rest on the general undesirable- 
ness of introducing changes when they will not be more than 
what has been already specified. 

* We italicize the word, as we are quite conscious that there may be several 
changes in these 219 verses in which the shadowy line between mere improve- 
ment and necessary correction has not been always observed. It is hard to 
resist the temptation to introduce a change when it is clear that the change 
brings out more distinctly the meaning of the inspired words, but this is a 
feeling which revisers must watch. 



150 



ON BEVISION OF TEE NEW TESTAMENT. 



CHAPTER VI. 



OBJECTIONS TO REVISION, VALID AND INVALID. 

We are now at length in a position to discuss the current 
objections to revision, and may shortly notice what has been 
urged by sober thinkers against the course which has been 
advocated in these pages. 

Of these objections, some are invalid and unreasonable, and 
Nature of the cur- are of such a nature, considered logically, that 
rent objections. we ma y won( j er that they stand in connection 

with the honored names with which they have been recently 
associated. There are, however, as we have indicated at the 
close of the last chapter, some objections of real force and 
validity, which have lately been urged against revision, and 
to them we shall give, as far as we are able, respectful an- 
swers ; but to the majority of current objections really no 
answer need be returned. They are based on the assumption 
that great changes are contemplated, and that no revision 
could be undertaken without involving them, whereas what 
has been suggested in the Convocation of the Province of 
Canterbury is very different, and much more historically 
probable. The argument assumes usually the form of a di- 
lemma. Either there must be great change, or comparatively 
little change: if the former, it is obviously undesirable; if 
the latter, it is not worth while moving in a matter where* 
the principle of quieta non movere is commonly considered 
to have great weight. The latter portion of this dilemma is 
that only with which we are here concerned. 

It must be observed, however, that the opponents of re- 
objections not ai- vision have not kept these two considerations 
ways fairly urged. proper i y apart# Even in the Northern Convo- 
cation, where the learning and weight of the speakers might 



OBJECTIONS TO REVISION, VALID AND INVALID. 151 

have led to the expectation that the subject would be dis- 
cussed with calmness of thought and with fairness of reason- 
ing, several of the speakers not only used arguments which 
belong to one portion of the dilemma when really the other 
portion was that only which was properly under considera- 
tion, but even adopted expressions which would seem to in- 
dicate some amount of bias and prejudgment. For instance, 
when one prelate urges as an objection that the power of 
writing clear and dialectic English had failed, what connec- 
tion can such a comment have with a proposal for introduc- 
ing a limited number of verbal changes ? Or, again, when 
another prelate begins his speech by saying that touching 
the English Bible is like touching the ark, what can we feel 
but that strong prejudice is imported just where scholars 
and theologians would most deprecate its introduction ? A 
tacit appeal is really made to strong predilections, which, 
however rightful in themselves, are commonly found incon- 
sistent with the coolness and sobriety of judgment which no 
subject needs more imperatively than the present. Even the 
president of the venerable body used language and adopted 
a simile, viz., that of the rider by a precipice at night, which 
to his clear and logical mind must have seemed, on consid- 
eration, to have involved some amount of antecedent bias. 
Other expressions, too, were used, which we must venture to 
consider as unduly strong when taken in connection with the 
proposals actually before the deliberative assembly. Surely 
no one contemplates, or ever did contemplate, except in the 
days of Purver and Harwood, " sending down our beloved 
Bible into the crucible to be melted down." At any rate, the 
resolution of the Province of Canterbury, with its distinct spe- 
cifications and guarded language, stood in no degree of con- 
nection with any such unreasonable and extravagant design. 
Xow when we pass from, the arguments to the counter-pro- 
Counter propo- posals with which they were associated — such, 
Northera d con- f° r instance, as to encourage independent schol- 
vocation. arg tQ m ake- their revisions, or to wait for the 



'' 



1 5 2 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



lingering Speaker's Commentary, as it has been called, what 
do they amount to but to proposals practically to encourage 
that which experience has proved valueless, and which sub- 
sequently the most reverend speaker himself very properly 
deprecated — the so-called improved versions of individual re- 
visers ? If we were to take the indirect suggestion of anoth- 
er prelate, and wait patiently for the Speaker's Commentary, 
what really would our gain be ? It would amount to no more 
than the opinion of another competent scholar to be added to 
the many that, in the New Testament at least, have already 
been given as to the true translation of the passages under 
consideration. What we now want is not any increase of 
individual opinions, but the collective opinion of a full com- 
pany of scholars on the best translation in passages where 
the Authorized Version is judged to need revision. If the 
Speaker's Commentary were to give us corrections of this 
kind, we should be wise to wait patiently for it; but if we 
are only to wait for suggested corrections emanating from in- 
dividuals, who may be very good commentators, but very un- 
practiced revisers, why, we wait really for very little. The 
Speaker's Commentary will probably be a great addition to 
our exegetical literature, and a most welcome aid to the the- 
ological student, but it absolutely can give little more, and 
professes to give little more, in each place, than the judgment 
of the single commentator. With such a work as is under 
present contemplation, viz., a revision of our version by a 
body of competent scholars, it really has scarcely any thing 
in common. A commentary is probably always done best 
by a single mind ; a revision, as we have already especially 
endeavored to show in a former chapter, must be, if it is to 
be successful, the result of the judgment of several minds con- 
ferring together, and doing their work, as much as possible, 
round a common table. 

We may, then, without any disrespect to the speakers, 
Three important plainly dismiss these various arguments and 
objections. proposals as being really only the old argu- 



OBJECTIOXS TO BE VLSI OX, VALID AXD LXVALLD. i 53 

menta inertke, reproduced with some degree of vigor, and at 
once proceed to those real objections which no one can afford 
lightly to pass by. These objections are only three in num- 
ber : first, that revision would tend to unsettle ; secondly, that 
it would probably loosen the bond between ourselves and 
Nonconformists, and, indeed, between the Church of England 
and the American and colonial churches, the present Author- 
ized Version being common to all ; thirdly, that it would en- 
courage still farther revisions, and that the great changes in 
our version, which we all agree to deprecate, would be brought 
about by successive revisions — in a word, that there would 
be no finality. 

These three objections certainly require thoughtful consid- 
Antecedent con- eration, and to them it may be well to devote 

sideration: lateut . r. i • -i ^ •,• • 

objections. the remainder 01 this chapter. One prelimina- 

ry consideration, however, must be borne in mind, that, even 
were these objections, greater than they really will be found 
to be, there still remains on the other side the great argument 
of duty, which with some minds will outweigh every other 
consideration, whether of convenience or of religious policy. 
Now if it be conceded that there are errors in our present 
version, and if it also be conceded that they are fairly remova- 
ble, and that any competent body of scholars could hopefully 
address itself to the work, then surely every principle of loy- 
alty to God's Word requires that this work should be done. 
It is not an answer to say that each expounder of Scripture 
may do this for himself and for his audience ; for, in the first 
place, it is highly probable that the correction of the individ- 
ual will reflect some bias or some want of that many-sidedness 
of consideration which only several minds, working together, 
can be expected to exhibit. Secondly, nothing really does 
more dishonor to the Inspired Word than to leave it con- 
fessedly in a state in which there is practically a sort of 
standing invitation to the ordinary preacher to correct before 
his audience what he himself would probably designate as 
our " otherwise admirable version." It is no use saying that 

Pp 



154 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

the corrections needed will not affect great principles, or that 
no errors have been produced, as a speaker at York expressed 
it, " inconsistent with the truth of God." There are errors in 
our translation which involve such inconsistency, and involve 
it, too, in the way in. which vital truths are most seriously af- 
fected, viz., by the inferences drawn from the written words. 
Suppose it be true, though even this we do not concede, that 
there is no obvious error in our version, whether in the text 
or in the translation, affecting any distinct definition of doc- 
trine, yet can any one, with the most moderate knowledge of 
theology, undertake to deny that a great number of current 
deductions, commonly made and commonly accepted, affect- 
ing such vital doctrines as the doctrine of personal salvation 
and the doctrine of the last things — what is technically called 
soteriology and eschatology — rest upon mistranslations of 
words and misconceptions in exegesis, which might be great- 
ly reduced, if not wholly removed, by a fair and scholarly re- 
vision ? There are favorite proof-texts, as the Bishop of St. 
David's pointed out with his usual acuteness, though, as we 
subsequently learn from him, to his own great personal incon- 
venience, which would Certainly disappear from their present 
prominence in current homiletical teaching. There are pas- 
sages, not few in number, which revision would certainly re- 
lieve from much of their present servitude of misuse in re- 
ligious controversy. It really would form a just subject for 
wonder that perhaps the greater portion of those who are 
loyally attached, even to extreme views as to verbal inspira- 
tion, are now found among the opponents to revision, if the 
reason were not intelligible and somewhat easy to divine. 
When we simply call to mind the many passages in which 
certain shades of certain opinions, not in the original words 
nor in the context, were still permitted to linger — if indeed, 
here and there, they were not introduced — we may perhaps 
cease to be surprised at the almost passionate language with 
which all attempts to exhibit "with greater faithfulness the 
real mind of the inspired original are deprecated and con- 



OBJECTIONS TO REVISION, VALID AND INVALID. 155 

demned. The truth is often unpalatable, and we fear it may 
be so in this case, but the fact is certain — some extreme views, 
especially in reference to some deeper doctrines, would lose 
some amount of the support which they now find in the 
translated words of the English Version of the New Testa- 
ment, if those words were fairly reconsidered by impartial 
and competent scholars. 

If this be so, then the counter -argument of faithfulness 
Real weight of the comes back to us aojain with increased force. 

argument of faith- , , . . 

fulness. At any rate, be this as it may, the counter-ar- 

gument must ever be fully borne in mind before we enter into 
the objections. With some minds, the duty of faithfulness 
to God's Word will outweigh every other consideration; and 
with most minds it will be admitted to be an antecedent ar- 
gument which, at any rate, requires enhanced force in the 
arguments on the other side. Most people very quickly as- 
sume that revision is a sort of professional matter, and that 
the advocacy of it only arises from some commingled desire 
of presenting the sacred documents in a better form, and at 
the same time of airing our scholarship, and never seriously 
consider that with some it is a matter of deepest moment, 
and that it appeals to the most conscientious convictions, as 
to Christian duty and Christian faithfulness, that can be found 
in any heart. On this subject there should be no mistake. 
With all those who seriously advocate combined and author- 
itative revision it is a question of simple duty. They are 
persuaded that the Church, " the pillar and ground of the 
truth," the guardian of the inspired archives, and the trans- 
mitter of them to her children, is bound to give them to those 
children in the purest and truest form, and that the Convo- 
cation of the Southern Province has only done her duty in 
moving in this holy cause without any reference to the pop- 
ular arguments of prejudice or expediency. 

With a recognition then, at any rate, of the deep convic- 
tions of those who are now moving for a revision of the 
present Version of the Holy Scriptures, and especially of the 



156 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

New Testament, let us now soberly consider the three objec- 
tions which we have already specified. 

The first argument, that a revision of the Scripture would 
First objection ten ^ to unsettle men's minds, and shake their 
considered. faith in the inspired Word itself, is, we regret 
to write it, the weakest of the three arguments. It was a 
fairly valid objection no more than a few years back, but, 
alas ! it has ceased to be one now. It sounded fairly con- 
vincing in the House of Commons some thirteen or fourteen 
years ago, from the mouth of a minister of the crown, in an- 
swer to an ill-considered proposal of one who scarcely could 
be considered an authority on such a subject. Approbation 
probably was given to the answer; but would that approba- 
tion be given now ? Nay, would any minister of the crown 
ever dream of using such a counter-argument now ? No ; 
faith, not merely in the words and expressions of Scripture, 
but in its very historical foundation, has of late been so seri- 
ously shaken, that few could be found who in any popular 
assembly could expect such an argument would be deemed 
now to have any real weight. What would verbal changes, 
often very trivial, at the rate of one a verse, amount to, in 
regard of unsettling men's minds, when compared with the 
earthquake-like movements which have taken place since the 
last-mentioned argument was used in the House of Commons? 
In an age that has welcomed Essays and Heviews, and pas- 
sionately praised such a semi-Socinian treatise as Ecce Homo, 
we must feel that such an objection as this can not possibly be 
admitted to hold any place. Even if it were to be urged in 
reference to those who at present have not seriously felt the 
movement to which we have alluded — the pure, tender, and 
loving souls that yet believe with all the trust and devotion 
of the days that are now no more, it would hardly have much 
weight, as it would be balanced by the consideration that we 
should tend most to reassure such spirits by showing to them, 
by the very facts of the revision, how blessed a heritage was 
the English Bible, and how little heed was to be paid to at- 



OBJECTIONS TO REVISION, VALID AND INVALID. 157 

tempts to vilify it. Instead of being liable to the insidious 
advance of apprehensions that the English Bible was not to 
be relied on as a faithful translation, they would see ultimate- 
ly what little change, even in an age of doubt as well as of 
advanced scholarship, was deemed necessary to be made in 
the Volume they loved so well. Far from unsettling, we are 
convinced that a wise and authoritative revision would at 
the present time act exactly in the contrary way, and that it 
would j)robably tend, more than can now even be imagined, 
to tranquillize and to reassure. 

The second objection is of greater weight, but there are 
Second objection several countervailing considerations which it 
considered. j g d es i ra "bi e not to leave unnoticed. In the first 

place, the alterations that would probably be introduced 
would almost certainly be very limited both in number and 
in degree. When made, however, they would generally be 
found to be clear and even necessary improvements. If, 
then, we are to make the extreme assumption that Noncon- 
formists as a body would be likely publicly to disavow the 
revised Volume, we must not fail to observe that they would 
thus find themselves committed to a disavowal of a certain 
number of corrections which every scholar in the world would 
pronounce necessary, if the duty of faithfulness to God's Word 
is in any degree to be accepted as a principle. But, in the 
second place, there is no reason whatever for thinking that 
Nonconformists would act in such a narrow spirit; nay, there 
is positive evidence to the contrary. This very year opened 
with a very able article in the January number of the British 
Quarterly on the subject of revision, from which it is perfectly 
clear that all the more intelligent Nonconformists not only 
would interpose no sectarian obstacles, but would even readi- 
ly take their part in the great work, if invited by competent 
authority, and on the equal terms of common scholarship. 
The subject has also been noticed in several of the public 
organs of the different dissenting bodies, and in none, so far 
as they have fallen under our observation, in other than tem- 



] 5 8 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

perate and even favorable terms. Just views seem to be en- 
tertainecTof the nature of the work, and no indications have 
yet appeared of any desire to gain party triumphs by assaults 
on received ecclesiastical terms, or by changes in the existing 
religious vocabulary. A few years ago it was different. Able 
writers like Marsh* seemed to consider it impossible for re- 
visers of different denominations to act in proper concert, 
and have used, at a period no farther back than 1861, the 
strongest language as to the hopelessness of united action. 
It is just, however, to the intelligent critic whose name has 
been mentioned, to add, that he expressed a belief that a 
time certainly was coming when there might be such an in- 
crease in harmony and in knowledge as to make a union in 
revision a possibility. 

And we verily believe that the time is now close at hand. 
Churchmen wii- ~Ro% only is there an apparent willingness in 
ling to co-operate. Nonconformists to take part in the work, but 
there is clear evidence on the part of the Church that she is 
fully prepared to ask for their aid and co-operation. No 
clearer proof can be given of this than the recommendations 
of an important committee of the Southern Convocation which 
have been recently accepted by both houses, and we trust will 
shortly be acted upon.f There the readiness to co-operate is 
specified in clear and authoritative words. 

* See Lectures on the English Language,]). 611. 

f The resolutions referred to are as follows : 

"1. That it is desirable that a revision of the Authorized Version of the 
Holy Scriptures be undertaken. 

"2. That the revision be so conducted as to comprise both marginal ren- 
derings, and such emendations as it may be found necessary to insert in the 
text of the Authorized Version. 

"3. That in the above resolutions we do not contemplate any new transla- 
tion of the Bible, or any alteration of the language, except where, in the judg- 
ment of the most competent scholars, such change is necessary. 

"4. That in such necessary changes, the style of the language employed in 
the existing version be closely followed. 

"5. That it is desirable that Convocation should nominate a body of its 
own members to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at liberty to 
invite the co-operation of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or 
religious body they may belong." 






OBJECTIONS TO REVISION, VALID AXD INVALID. 159 

But, in the third place, it may be observed that not only are 
Example of co-op- . there these evidences on either side of willin&v 

eratiou. The Ta- . ° 

mil Version. ness to co-operate in making yet more perfect 

the translation of our common Bible, but there are actual ex- 
amples of the work having been done in perfect harmony, in 
the case of translations of the Scripture into foreign languages 
for missionary purposes. A very striking instance of this has 
been recently given by the completion of the Tamil Version. 
This very important work has now been finished, after more 
than eleven years of united labor, in which missionaries from 
the Church of England have worked in perfect harmony with 
missionaries from other religious bodies. In the narrative of 
their labors which has lately been published* there are no 
traces of those dissensions on ecclesiastical words which re- 
cent writers in newspapers have confidently predicted will be 
the case at home. ISTo notices, or even hints of any sectarian 
difficulties, which certainly might have been expected to show 
themselves in a new work, and in a period so long as eleven 



The names of the committee who were appointed to draw up the report are 
as follows : Bishop of Winchester, Bishop of St.David's, Bishop of Llandaff, 
Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, Bishop of Ely, Bishop of Lincoln, Bishop 
of Salisbury, Bishop of Bath and Wells, The Prolocutor (Dr. Bickersteth), 
Dean of Canterbury (Dr. Alford), Dean of Westminster (Dr. Stanley), Dean 
of Lincoln (Dr. Jeremie), Archdeacon of Bedford (Mr. Bose), Archdeacon of 
Exeter (Mr. Ereeman), Archdeacon of Rochester and St. Alban's (Dr. Grant), 
Chancellor Massingberd, Canon Blakesley, Canon How, Canon Selwyn, Canon 
Swainson, Canon Woodgate, Dr. Jebb, Dr. Kay, and Mr. De Winton. We are 
glad now to subjoin that the report was accepted unanimously by the Upper 
House, and with substantial unanimity by the Lower House. A committee 
has been appointed, consisting of eight bishops and eight presbyters, to take 
the necessary steps for giving effect to the resolutions. The committee con- 
sists of the eleven names first specified in the above list, and those of the 
Archdeacon of Bedford, Canon Blakesley, Canon Selwvn, Dr. Jebb, and Dr. 
Kay. 

* See the very interesting account of this important work recently published 
by the Bible Society. This pamphlet is especially commended to the attention 
of the impartial reader. It is singularly illustrative of many of our supposed 
present difficulties, and shows how, by the blessing of the Holy Ghost, they 
have been surmounted by the earnest and faithful men who took part in the 
work. 



1 60 ELLICOTT ON BE VISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

years, find any place in the interesting pamphlet which gives 
the record of the progress and completion of the labors. The 
men did their work on the basis of Tamil scholarship, and with 
a true sense of their responsibilities, and they have been per- 
mitted to bring their faithful labors to a successful close. And 
as it has been with them, so we are persuaded it will now be 
among ourselves. The bonds will be reverence for God's 
Word and God's truth, and sound and practiced scholarship ; 
and these will be found too strong even for religious preju- 
dices, if indeed they are to be considered as likely to be shown 
by men of disciplined minds in matters of English and Helle- 
nic grammar and criticism. Again and again must the gen- 
eral reader be reminded of the great difference between a 
commentary and a revision. The former work could not be 
executed by such a mixed body as is now under considera- 
tion ; the latter certainly could, because the appeal would lie 
in all cases to scholarship ; and here, thank God, there is 
neither High-Church nor Low-Church, neither conformity nor 
dissent. If the mass of general readers could once be per- 
suaded of this simple fact — that the more accurate the schol- 
arship, the more tolerant and charitable are men found to be 
when in co-operation, we should hear far less gloomy anticipa- 
tions of the animosities and ruptures that we are told would 
show themselves in a mixed body of scholars of differing 
religious persuasions. But those who indulge in such antici- 
pations are not scholars, and have never done an hour's work 
of revision in co-operation with others. Their words, how- 
ever, have some power to do harm. 

We may come to the conclusion, then, that there is not, at 
the present time at any rate, much force in the second objec- 
tion. A few years back it would have had much weight, but 
these few years have brought with them many changes both 
for good and for evil. The utmost that can be urged is that 
a revised version might not win its way by equal rates of 
progress among churchmen and dissenters, but the anticipa- 
tion that there would be a Church Bible and a Dissenter's 






OBJECTIONS TO REVISION, VAIID AND INVALID. \q\ 



Bible is really an anticipation only fit for a commonplace in 
a popular speech, or an argument in a newspaper letter. 

The question of our relation to the American and colonial 
Relation to coio- churches is very different, and confessedly is not 

nial churches and . . , . "L , .. J 

America. without its difficulties. These two considera- 

tions, however, go far to modify them : first, that the changes 
will, as we have shown, probably be few ; and, secondly, that 
there will not be any antecedent jealousies and prejudices 
(such as between the Church and Dissent) which could hin- 
der the changes being accepted, if really good. The result 
probably will be, that any changes that ultimately obtain full 
acceptance at home will very readily be adopted both by the 
American and colonial churches. The question will really 
turn on the amount and nature of the changes. If they are 
few and good, they will be accepted ; if not, they will not 
meet w T ith acceptance either at home or abroad. 

The third objection is perhaps the most important of the 
The third objec- three, but it is one which, by the nature of the 

tion belongs to . . 

the future. case, it is not very easy to meet. We are trans- 

ferred into the future, and have very few data derived from 
the past on which to hazard a forecast. Former revisions 
certainly succeeded each other after no lengthened intervals, 
but then they were revisions which were suggested by the 
existing: state of the translation and the chanceful character 
of the times. We have now, as all are ready to admit, a 
thoroughly good, though not a perfect translation. It has 
maintained its ground in its present form for 260 years. It 
has secured a firm hold on the affections of the people. It 
has become also a sort of literary monument of which every 
Englishman and every English critic of eminence (if we ex- 
cept a few ill-natured remarks of Mr. Hal lam*) is justly proud. 
These are facts which certainly seem to suggest the persua* 
sion that one cautious and reverent retouching of the old 
picture might be tolerated, but that all parties, after they 
had accepted the work — and this it would take time to bring 
* See his Literature of Europe, vol. ii. , p. 58, Harper & Brothers, N.York. 



I g 2 ELLICOTT ON BE VISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

about — would very distinctly concur in deprecating any far- 
ther manipulations. The really monumental character of our 
version is its best protection against progressive change, and 
this protection, we can not help feeling persuaded, as long 
as England is England, will be always found available and 
sufficient. 

But, as we have already said, these are but forecasts in 
Faithfulness re- answer to forecasts. Different thinkers would 
qmres the work. p ro k a kiy come to different conclusions. Bias, 
again, may influence very seriously our predictions and an- 
ticipations. So it may be best, perhaps, to leave the objec- 
tion as we find it, and rather to put on the other side what 
many feel to be their bounden duty, viz., to place before our 
people God's truth in as faithful a form as the nature of the 
work permits. If there are errors, they ought to be removed 
for the truth's sake. If there are inaccuracies which give 
false tinges to deduced doctrines, surely we seem called upon 
to revise them now, whatever may be done in the future, in 
accordance with the known and, for the most part, fixed prin- 
ciples of grammar and scholarship. Surely, whatever may 
be our anticipations of future proceedings, whatever our hopes 
of farther discoveries, we do seem bound, for very thankful- 
ness, to take the critical aid that has been so mysteriously 
extended to us, and with the Sinaitic Manuscript, and the 
vast accumulated knowledge of other manuscripts that has 
of late been made available, to prepare ourselves reverently 
to bring up our English Testament to that standard of cor- 
rectness which is now clearly attainable. 

If this is the duty of the present, then we must be content 
to leave the morrow to be careful for the things of itself. 
We might justly have been anxious if the amount of change 
had seemed likely to have been greater than we have now 
found it likely to be. After the estimate we have formed, 
and the results arrived at, when taken in combination with 
the calls of duty to which we have just adverted, it does 
seem proper, whatever the future may be, cautiously and 



OBJECTIONS TO REVISION, VALID AND INVALID. 1(33 

reverently to go forward, and if the third objection weighs 
with us, to set now an example to the future of our circuni- 
spectness, our sense of responsibility, and our guarded rever- 
ence for England's greatest treasure. The nature of our ac- 
tion now may exercise vast influence on the future ; nay, it 
may not only give the tone to all changes in days yet to 
come, but may prevent rash and sweeping changes, which 
inaction, at the present time, may only too probably bring 
about. 

So let us reverently and cautiously go forward, and now, 
lastly, consider how and in what manner we may best pursue 
our onward way. The consideration of this question will form 
the subject of our concluding chapter. 



164 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



CHAPTER VII. 

BEST MANNER OF PROCEEDING WITH THE WORK. 






We may now suitably bring our considerations to a close 
by a few remarks on the authority under which it would seem 
best that a revision of the Holy Scriptures should be under- 
taken, and on the most hopeful mode of proceeding with the 
actual work. 

In reference to the first question — the authority under 
Convocation the which the work should be undertaken — we have 

proper authority . . 

for the work. now happily, and we may also rightly say prov- 
identially, no necessity for any lengthened comments. The 
question has recently, and even subsequently to the printing 
of the early pages of this work, been answered for us. The 
Convocation of Canterbury has not only given its weighty 
approval to the undertaking, but has also appointed a com- 
mittee of sixteen men,* with power to add to their number, 
to make a beginning, and in due time to place some specimens 
of their work before Convocation and the nation at large. 
That committee will have met and'decided on its future plan 

* The names have been specified above : see the note on p. 159. In refer- 
ence to this number of sixteen, it is right here to notice the wisdom and for- 
bearance shown by the Lower House. Several of our readers may know that 
when a joint commission of both houses of Convocation is appointed, it is cus- 
tomary for the number appointed from the Lower House to be double that 
from the Upper. In the present case, however, on its being pointed out that 
so large a body as sixteen, in addition to the eight bishops, would practically 
much limit the numbers that could be co-opted from the general company of 
Biblical scholars not belonging to Convocation (the committee otherwise being 
likely to become utterly unwieldy), the Lower House, alike with good sense 
and good feeling, accepted the suggestion that the number from their body 
should be reduced to the same number as that from the Upper House. See 
the recent debates in Convocation, and the very sensible speech of Lord Al- 
wyne Compton in The Guardian for May 1 8, p. 585. 



BEST MANNER OF PROCEEDING WITH THE WORK. 165 

of operations before these lines will come before the eye of the 
reader. 

So the Convocation of Canterbury has taken up the great 
and national work. Yes, the work is marked out, and some 
of the future laborers are already called forth to commence it. 
At such a time and in such a cause, is it too much humbly to 
ask that the prayers of all those that love the Word of God 
in sincerity may constantly be offered up for all those who, 
in these anxious times, either are now or hereafter shall be 
called to take part in the work, and who, in the prosecution 
of that work, will need all the support that such prayers are 
especially permitted to minister? 

Convocation has undertaken the work; and with this issue 
many at first will be, and will probably avow themselves to 
be, utterly dissatisfied. Such a work, they will urge, ought 
to have been committed to a royal commission ; the highest 
earthly authority in this realm should have summoned to- 
gether the revisers of the future, and assigned to them their 
duties and their work. The national treasure should have 
been intrusted to men chosen out from the nation at large, 
not to the members of an antiquated body, and to the pre- 
carious aid that might be extended to them by those who 
are without. Such thoughts are natural, and such thoughts 
will find public expression, but they will not be, after all, the 
thoughts of the sober observers of the days in which we now 
are living ; they will not be the expressions of those who best 
and most intelligently appreciate the mighty changes which 
each year that is passing is now silently bringing with it. 
Convocation is really the best authority under which such a 
work could be undertaken, and (not to mention others) for 
this one, simple, and homely reason, that what we want is a 
revised version, and not an improved version; and that the 
latter would almost certainly be the result of the labors of 
such a royal commission as would inevitably be called to the 
work in these present days. It would be constructed, almost 
certainly, on the principle of including all representative men 



16G ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

who had any sufficient claim to scholarship, and a very repre- 
sentative version would such a body most assuredly produce. 
No, we may be certainly thankful that those who stand high- 
est in the national councils have shown no disposition to en- 
courage these ambitious and ultimately self- frustrating de- 
signs. We may almost trace the providential ordering of God 
in the turn that the Revision Question has lately taken. "We 
have now, at any rate, no fear of an over-corrected version. 
The men now appointed, and those who will be invited to join 
them, will all feel alike, that they are entering upon a work 
in which that which will most commend them to public favor 
will be the least possible amount of change consistent with faith- 
fulness* A royal commission would conceive itself to be in- 
dependent, and would act accordingly. A body, constituted 
as the body of revisers now will be constituted, will have so- 
berly to consult public religious feeling. It will always have 
before it this plain fact — that their work can only hope to take 
the place of the venerable version now in our hands by being 
that version, not only generally and substantially, but that 
version in all its details save only those where amending 
hands may have removed some scattered errors and imper- 
fections. Such a body will, by the very nature of the case, 
even independently of those higher principles by which it 
will, beyond all doubt, be influenced, know perfectly well that, 
to achieve any success, it must labor patiently, vigilantly, and 
sympathizingly ; and such a knowledge will act as a healthy 
incentive. It will only have itself and its own efforts to trust 
to. To succeed is really little more than its very condition 
of existence. To fail is to be disbanded and dissipated. 

When we thus soberly consider the problem and the pro- 
posed mode of solving it, we can hardly doubt that even those 
who may at first have felt the strongest prejudice against a 
so-called national work being attempted by members of the 
Convocation- of Canterbury (and we hope, ultimately, of York) 

* See the comments in The Times for May G, already referred to on p. 86. 
This will probably be one of the leading rules. 



BEST MANNER OF PROCEEDING WITH THE WORK. 167 

and those scholars who may be invited to join them, will in 
the end admit that it is best that matters should have taken 
this their present and almost unlooked-for turn. We may 
honestly even more than acquiesce in the present arrange- 
ment, and wish all concerned in it a hearty God-speed. 

Of course, at present many things are uncertain, and must 
The future of the be considered as yet in the realm of hope rather 
work uncertain. than that f knowledge and experience. We 
can not tell confidently to what extent those without will join 
in the work,* nor, if they do join, can we certainly predict that 
all will act together with easiness and harmony. We can not 
be sure that they may not all be disposed to attempt a far 
more sweeping revision than the Church and even nation 
would tolerate. We dare not confidently- say that they may 
not begin with caution and moderation, and be accelerated 
into innovation. All such things are possible ; but we may 
reasonably have hope, and even well-grounded hope, that it 
will be otherwise, and that both Conformity and Nonconform- 
ity will act in this matter both wisely and fraternally, and will 

* It is especially cheering to observe that the practical invitation of Convo- 
cation to those who are not members of the Church of England has been re- 
sponded to in the spirit in which it was given. The writer of a thoroughly 
fiendly article in The Freeman of May 13 expresses the hope that "Noncon- 
formists will not be slow to respond to any invitation to co-operate in the task 
inaugurated by Convocation," and closes his remarks with the following wise 
and conciliatory words : "We earnestly hope that, should any of our number 
be summoned to the assistance of the Committee of Convocation, they will 
immediately respond. Their task is simplified by the determination to revise, 
and not to re-translate. A new translation would raise the vexed question of 
the rendering of the words which relate to baptism. Revision, we conclude, 
leaves that question where it was. In any case, fidelity to the original text 
must be the ruling principle, and he that hath the Divine Word in the language 
in which it was originally written should give it faithfully, in its exact equiva- 
lent, to the English-speaking peoples of the world. We wish the enterprise 
the divine blessing and acceptance with the churches, and counsel our readers 
to follow the wise and liberal lead of the bishops (whose recommendations we 
cordially indorse) in the proposed revision of the English version of the Bible." 
It may be remarked that we had ourselves anticipated this very expression of 
opinion, and had ventured positively to say for Baptist scholars what is here 
said by themselves. See above, p. 83, note *, which was written prior to the 
words here quoted. 



168 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF TEE NEW TESTAMENT. 

only vie with each other in reverent solicitude to do faithfully 
that which they have been called to undertake, and in that 
wise fear and trembling with which the devout scholar of the 
nineteenth century should approach the revision of the no- 
blest version of the written words of patriarchs, prophets, 
evangelists, and apostles that the world has ever known. 

We may now pass, secondly and lastly, to a brief consider- 
ation of the manner in which the work should be undertaken 
and performed. 

The chief principles have already been laid down in the 
The work should foregoing pages. We have already specified 
be done together, ^q leading canons which reflection and expe- 
rience alike seem to suggest as the fundamental rules that 
must be followed in a work such as that to which we are 
now definitely pledged. These we have already seen are, 
First, that the work must be done round a common table. 
Mind must act on mind; thought on thought. We must 
have no ambitious schemes of collecting opinions by corre- 
spondence or otherwise, unless those collected opinions are 
to be discussed by the gathered body of revisers. We must 
not delegate to any small committee the work of consolidating 
or harmonizingthe opinions of the many that may with profit 
be called into counsel. No ; both the revisers of the Old and 
of the New Testament respectively must do their work to- 
gether, and discuss not only their own proposals, but also all 
the suggestions of others, in their own common rooms of coun- 
cil. On this, taught by experience, we lay the greatest stress. 
And not only the present, but the past confirms this view. 
We have seen that, in a great degree, the success of our pres- 
ent Authorized Version was due to co-operative union, and 
that the points in which it partially failed, viz., consistency of 
renderings, and harmony in the application of grammatical 
principles, are just those points in which a system which gave 
the New Testament to two different companies, under two 
different chairmen, might beforehand be expected to fail. But 
if we thus press for union in work, we also insist, with equal 



BEST MAJXNER OF PROCEEDING WITH THE WORK. 1(39 

earnestness, on the necessity of individual labor in private. 
To make such a union a truly co-operative union, every mem- 
ber of it would have to work privately as well as publicly. 
Each scholar belonging to the body would of course come 
with his corrections carefully made in private, reconsidered, 
and formally committed to writing. With these he would 
take his place at the council-table, and these he would com- 
pare with the corrections similarly made by the rest of his 
brethren. The changes ultimately agreed upon would be the 
result of the comparison, and of the discussion which each 
item in the comparison would be liable to call out. Many 
corrections would be found to have been made by the major- 
ity, and would at once be accepted by all present; others 
would require consideration; a certain portion would call 
out discussion, and could only be finally settled by a formal 
vote. 

While, then, we thus urge, as the first principle, co-operative 
union, we not the less insist upon previous and formal prepa- 
ration in private, so as to concentrate attention on what might 
seem, on deliberation, to require it, and to obviate all improper 
waste of time in discussion of mere proposals of the moment. 
If this would seem to be our first principle, the second 
Experience the would certainly seem to be the due recognition 
best guide. Q f ex p er { ence as ( ne surest guide. In other words, 
the work at first must be done tentatively. A careful record 
of principles apparently arrived at, and even of renderings of 
passages marked by certain grammatical characteristics, e. g., 
hypothetical sentences involving what could not or would 
not happen,* past participles with finite verbs, the use of 

* We may give as an instance such passages as John v., 46 ; viii., 10, al., 
where we have the imperfect in both clauses, when contrasted with such pas- 
sages as Matt, xi., 21, where both clauses have the aorist, or with such passages 
as Heb. iv. , 8, where there is an aorist in the first clause and an imperfect in 
the second, or conversely, as John xiv., 28, where the imperfect is in the first 
clause and the aorist in the second. Let any one try to lay down a settled 
principle for translating these, and he will find it extremely difficult to cam- 
it out in easy and idiomatic English. Even in the simplest case — imperfect 
in both clauses and aorist in both clauses— if we try alwavs to translate the 

Q Q 



1 70 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

" shall" or " shall have" in the translation of the aorist Sub- 
junctive after certain temporal particles, etc. — all would re- 
quire to be noted down at the time and to be carefully regis- 
tered. There would thus be a large and increasing amount 
of general principles which would be continually tested by 
actual practice, and ultimately confirmed and consolidated. 
With these thus acquired and thus verified, the whole work 
would be reconsidered, and the result thus arrived at accepted 
for that edition as final. 

The third principle would be to preserve the mean between 
Revision should pretermission of what ou^ht to have been cor- 

be guarded, but x ° 

sufficient. rected, and mere improvement in renderings 

when the necessity for the change was not distinctly appre- 
ciable. In other words, the revision would have to be alike 
conservative and sufficient; carried out on the general prin- 
ciple of the least possible change on the one hand, and yet 
honorably imitative of that extreme vigilance which (in the 
comparison in chap. iii. of those passages as given in our own 
version, with the same passages as given in Tyndale and the 
early versions) we have already observed to be such a special 
and honorable characteristic of the revision of 1611. To in- 
novate, or what is called "improve," is a grievous mistake on 
the one side, but it must not be forgotten that there is a di- 
rectly contrary mistake, which, if made, might lead to very 
unwelcome consequences. If the revision were not fairly a 
sufficient one, it would certainly be followed at no great 
length of time by another attempt, and the very evil, of 
which we have been forced to admit the possibility in our 
last chapter, would become real and actual. To use a home- 
ly simile, if we create an appetite for revision we must be 
careful to satisfy it. No doubt this canon is a far easier one 
to state than to follow. This golden mean of correcting just 
what ought to be corrected is excessively hard to maintain ; 

former by "would" and the latter by "would have" (not an unreasonable prin- 
ciple), we shall find many a passage that will put even this rule to a test that 
it will not in practice be found able successfully to bear. 



BEST MANNER OF PROCEEDING WITH THE WORK. \>j\ 

still, we feel confident that if the general reasonableness and 
truth of this principle be fairly recognized, and if the attempt 
be made, as far as possible, to act on it, experience will grad- 
ually make the observance of it more and more easy and in- 
stinctive. The principle, of course, really involves all that 
has already been said on the limits of revision, and includes 
numberless degrees of application ; yet we are persuaded, if 
once the reviser clearly appreciates the difference between a 
mere debatable improvement and a thoroughly necessary cor- 
rection, he will be enabled, after a moderate amount of prac- 
tice, to decide with approximate success in those many cases 
which lie on the border-land, and in the just estimate of which 
the strongest call is made upon the intelligence and judgment 
of the reviser. Our own corrections in the fifth chapter will, 
we have no doubt, supply the acute reader with several in- 
stances in which we ourselves have unwittingly crossed the 
frontier, and have introduced unnecessary corrections ; still, 
if it be so, we shall have, at any rate, illustrated the truth of 
another principle, often insisted on in these pages, that no 
single mind can produce a thoroughly good and consistent 
revision. 

The fourth principle, which it would seem most desirable 
The old vocabuia- carefully to observe, and in every case strictly 
ry to be used. ^ Q act U p 0n throughout the work, has been al- 
ready briefly alluded to in the introductory chapter, and may 
now be stated more fully and precisely. It relates to the 
language and vocabulary to be used in the corrections and 
alterations that may be introduced, and it may be expressed 
as follows : In corrections, limit the choice of words to the 
vocabulary of the present version combined with that of the 
versions that preceded it ;* and in alterations, preserve as far 

* It seems desirable especially to include the earlier versions, with the cau- 
tion only that the Rhemish Version, from the peculiar nature of its language, 
must commonly be excepted. It is often, as has been already remarked (see 
p. 81), useful in its vocabulary, but so Latinized that it can only be used with 
the utmost caution. The other versions, especially those of Tyndale and Cov- 
erdale, may be used very freely in regard of the language in which the correc- 



1 72 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

as possible the rhythm and cadence of the Authorized Version. 
This principle can not be too strongly insisted upon. It is in 
the choice of the words, and the juxtaposition of the words 
when chosen, that the success of any revision will be found in 
a great degree to depend, and for these three reasons : the 
revised version must be a popular version ; it must also be a 
version that reads well, and can be heard with the old and 
familiar pleasure with which our present version is always 
listened to; it must, thirdly, be such that no consciousness 
of novelty of turn or expression is awakened in the mind of 
hearer or reader. In a word, we must never be reminded that 
we are not hearing the old version, and must only be brought 
to perceive the revision when we read it over thoughtfully 
in private. Such a result can only be obtained by making 
the correction in words chosen out of (so to speak) a strictly 
Biblical vocabulary, and also by the mechanical but very nec- 
essary proceeding of having each chapter, when completed, 
read aloud, slowly and continuously, by one of the body of 
revisers to his assembled brethren. Many a correction which 
the eye and inward feeling might have been willing to accept 
will be beneficially challenged by the simple yet subtle process 
of the hearing of the outward ear. This very homely sugges- 
tion will be found of some practical usefulness. 

The fifth principle is more one of detail, but still it seems 
vote not to be to involve in it so much of common sense and 
humed. practical wisdom that it perhaps deserves a place 

among the leading principles we are now specifying, and it 
may be stated in the following rule : In every passage where 
there may be distinct differences of opinion, and decided ex- 
pressions of it, reserve the talcing of the vote thereon till the 
beginning of the next meeting. Let the arguments for the 

tions are to be clothed. Frequently they will be found to contain the very 
alteration we might wish to introduce, and herein we shall supplement the 
work of 1611. The translators of that day Avere bidden to revert to the older 
versions, but it has been already observed that they did this very imperfectly. 
See p. 80, and Westcott, History of the English Bible, p. 339. 



BEST JIAXXER OF PROCEEDIXG WITH THE WORE. 173 

different renderings be fully stated and concluded at the prior 
meeting, so that nothing remains but the decision between 
two or more competing corrections ; but let that decision, as 
we have said, be made at the subsequent meeting, after time 
has been taken for private reconsideration, and after every 
trace of that slight irritation which is often called out in the 
very best of us by opposing argument and by the keenness 
of discussion has entirely disappeared. It should be a fixed 
rule that the discussion should not be reopened when the vote 
is taken, unless with the consent of two thirds, as otherwise 
the very evil which this rule is designed to repress would be 
again called into existence and operation. Such a rule re- 
quires but few comments to recommend it. It is based on 
the recognition of some amount of poor human infirmity, 
which, in such a calm and holy work as the revision of 
the Scriptures, should ever be sensitively provided against. 
There should be no tinge of temper or party spirit in any 
correction, however slight, that may hereafter find its place 
on the pages of the English Bible. 

Our sixth principle relates to the use of the margin, and is 
Text should ai- founded on a due recognition of the importance 

ways be better . . . .... „ 

than margin, of two practical opposing considerations. On 
the one hand, we have already distinctly expressed the opin- 
ion, and have acted upon it in more than one passage of the 
sample revisions in a foregoing chapter, that in a doubtful 
passage the present rendering should be maintained, unless 
there was a distinct preponderance of argument and authori- 
ty against it, and that the competing rendering should be 
placed in the margin. On the other hand, no principle seems 
more distinctly to commend itself to us than this, that the 
margin should not, in the general judgment of scholars, be 
considered to be exegetically or critically superior to the 
text.* Such is the judgment commonly entertained in refer- 

* It is with some degree of regret that we observe that the Bishop of Lin- 
coln, in his recent speech in Convocation (see Guardian for May 11, p. 550), 
still advocates what, we have seen, he recommended in Convocation thirteen 



1 74 ELLICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

ence to our present margin ; such certainly should not be the 
judgment of scholars and divines in reference to the margin 
of the future. But how can we harmonize these partially 
conflicting considerations ? How can we combine conserva- 
tism with loyalty to the calm decision of an intelligent ma- 
jority? Perhaps thus: Firstly considering each existing 
marginal rendering as so nearly of the same authority as that 
of the text, that if the majority, even by a single vote,* de- 
cided for the margin, the margin and the text should at once 
change places. Secondly, in cases where there may be no 
marginal rendering, by providing that some fixed proportion 
of votes, for example two thirds, should always be required 
before any portion of the present version should finally be dis- 
placed, whether to be transferred to the margin or no. The 
transference to the margin would obviously apply only to 
cases of real importance, and in which all would agree, which- 
ever side they might take, that the alternative rendering 

years ago. See above, p. 15, note *. There is nothing we may more justly 
deprecate than any plan which might contemplate placing the corrections that 
may be proposed in the margin. Any plan more likely to invite imperfectly 
considered corrections can hardly be conceived. It would, in fact, be thor- 
oughly to misuse the margin ; it would give (if the bishop's suggestions were 
adopted) very undesirable liberty to individual ministers, viz., as to whether 
they would read publicly the text or the margin, and it would also at once 
relieve the revisers of a large portion of that deep feeling of responsibility 
which a continual remembrance that what they are recommending is for the 
fear* would be certain to bring with it. How soberly and how thoughtfully 
men would form their decisions when those decisions were to settle (if their 
revision was accepted) what was ultimately to take the place of the present 
words, and hereafter to be read publicly as a portion of the Book of Life. 

* We may illustrate this by an instance in one of the two sample portions of 
the Authorized Version which we have revised in chap. v. In Romans viii., 
27, it is doubtful whether on is causal or simply demonstrative ; whether, in 
fact, it is to be translated "because" or "that." Here the A.V. places the 
second of these two translations in the margin. On the principle, then, above 
laid down, a bare majority would be entitled to take this latter translation if 
they thought fit. They perhaps would take it, as the clause really does not 
strictly contain the reason for the assertion in the foregoing clause, but seems 
rather to explain more precisely what is just before stated generally, namely, 
that He "maketh intercession, etc." So Grotius and Estius,and, among more 
recent expositors, Fritzsche, Meyer, Reiche, and others. 



BEST MANNER OF PROCEEDING WITH THE WORE. '175 

ought specially to be recorded. On a final revision, then, 
two thirds might with profit be required in reference to all 
differences from the A.V.,but in a first revision the decision 
of a simple majority should always be allowed to prevail.* 
No committee would be wise to begin their work with self- 
tied hands. Reverence, experience, and, let us not fail to add, 
prayer for spiritual guidance, would always be found to be 
of more avail than elaborate rules, which the stress of practice 
and the diversity of circumstances would soon show to be 
utterly nugatory. Such a body as the revisers should be 
jealously careful to reserve to themselves all proper freedom. 
Rules and canons are good, but elasticity is better, and in no 
undertaking that can readily be conceived will elasticity be 
found a more necessary element than in the translation of 
Scripture or the revision of translations already made. Elas- 
ticity is the characteristic of every version from the days of 
Tyndale down to the date of the last revision, and elasticity 
must be the characteristic of the revised version of the future, 
if it is ever to displace or even rival the fresh, vigorous, and 
genuinely idiomatic translation that bears the honored name 
of the Authorized Version. 

The seventh and last principle may be very briefly stated, 
Follow the spirit an< ^ conveniently embodied in the following 
ofthe old rules. rec0 mmendation, viz., that, mutatis mutandis, 
4he revisers of our own day should consider themselves as 
bound by the spirit of the rules laid down for the guidance 
of the translators of 1611. In several points they might even 
be bound by the letter; but, as the circumstances are different, 

* We do here earnestly repeat the hope, already expressed in substance in 
an earlier portion of this work (see p. 30), that the judgment of the ancient 
versions will especially he considered. In doubtful cases, and where the 
grammatical and exegetical arguments are very nearly in equipoise, the judg- 
ment of the early versions is of great moment. Every pains, therefore, should 
be taken to ascertain their opinions, and those opinions ought to be accounted 
as votes of a very prerogative character. Great Aveight may also justly be 
laid on the express decisions of the Greek fathers. The deliberate opinion 
of men who spoke the language of the New Testament can not fail to exercise 
considerable influence on the judgment of every sober interpreter. 






1 76 EILICOTT ON REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



and the problem now to be solved not perfectly the same as it 
was then, it would seem enough to suggest a loyal adherence 
to the spirit of the rules, and especially a careful imitation of 
the manner in which those rules were applied. To say more 
would be to pass into details which have either been already 
noticed and illustrated in the foregoing pages, or which can 
only properly be discussed when all the varied exigencies of 
the work shall have displayed themselves in actual practice. 
The rules of the revision of 1611 may form the basis for the 
rules of the new revision, but they must be read subject to 
the inherent differences between the work of the past and 
the w^ork of the future. The former revisers had to deal with 
a version of but moderate pretensions (the Bishops' Bible), 
and but doubtfully holding its own against its Genevan rival. 
The revisers of these days have to deal with a version of the 
highest possible strain, and that deservedly stands unique and 
unapproached. It may be wise, then, for our present revisers 
to avail themselves of the wisdom of past rules, but it must 
nearly always be rather in the newness of their spirit than 
in the oldness of the letter. 

To sum up all, then, in a single sentence, we would respect- 
fully and deferentially say to the learned and faithful men that 
will shortly address themselves to this great undertaking, Do 
your work together ; consider experience your truest guide; 
don't try to " improve" our present version, but be satisfied with 
correcting it ; use the old vjords, and have an ear for the old 
rhythm ; donH decide till afterthought has exercised its due 
i?rfluence ; make the text better than the margin; and, lastly, 
follow the spirit of the old rules. 

We may now close this chapter, and with it the present 
Conclusion, work. There are numberless details which might 
yet be specified. There are many suggestions, only partially 
developed, which perhaps it might not be wholly out of place 
to specify in a chapter that has for its heading The best Man- 
ner of Proceeding with the Work. But all these things we 
may now leave to the learned body of men who either have 



BEST MANNER OF PROCEEDING WITH THE WORK. 177 

been or are about to be called to the important work. Let us 
trust all details to their wisdom and faithfulness, and support 
them by our prayers. Their work is arduous ; much is ex- 
pected from them ; the object at which they are aiming is 
almost discouragingly high : success is what is demanded of 
them, and implied in the very fact of their being called to- 
gether; failure is an individual as well as a collective re- 
proach. Yes, the work is arduous. Never, since the last re- 
vision, have scholars and theologians girded up their loins to 
a work in which more faithfulness was required in prepara- 
tion ; more vigilance in execution ; more patience in discuss- 
ing; more wisdom in discerning; more sobriety in judging. 
Never, during the two centuries and a half that have now 
passed away, has English learning and good sense been called 
upon to submit themselves to a severer test. Never was 
there a work in which could be needed, not only for the gen- 
eral body, but for every individual member of it, more patient 
energy, deeper humility, and a fuller sense of duty and re- 
sponsibility. . 

Let us pray, then, for our revisers and their work. Let us 
pray that their work may bring a blessing to this Church 
and nation, and make wiser unto salvation not only us at 
home, but all those that speak our common tongue— those 
countless thousands whose inner and spiritual life the decis- 
ions of these revisers may affect, and whose knowledge of 
God's message to mankind their deliberations may be per- 
mitted to further. But those results are not yet. That fu- 
ture is still distant. Even with the most prospered issues, 
a generation must pass away ere the labors of the present 
time will be so far recognized as to take the place of the 
labors of the past. The youngest scholar that may be called 
upon to bear his part in the great undertaking will have fallen 
on sleep before the labors in which he may have shared will 
be regarded as fully bearing their hoped-for fruit. The latest 
survivor of the gathered company will be resting in the calm 
of Paradise ere the work at which he toiled will meet with 



the reception which, by the blessing of God the Holy Ghost, 
it may ultimately be found to deserve. The bread will be 
cast upon the waters, but it will not be found till after many 
clays. 

And it is good that it should be so. Such work as the re- 
vision of the noblest version of the Word of God that this 
world holds is not for the fleeting praise or blame of contem- 
poraries, but for the calm judgment of the holy and the wise 
in distant days and generations yet to come. . . . With such 
mingled feelings, with these humbly implied aspirations on 
the one hand, and these chastening remembrances on the 
other — with the quickest sense of frailty and weakness, and 
yet with the consciousness of deepest responsibility, let our 
revisers now address themselves to their work, and in the end 
all may be well. Let us remember that our best and highest 
powers are vouchsafed to us in this world only for labor while 
it is day, but let us also verily remember that such labor, if 
faithfully bestowed, will abide, for that on which it is to be 
bestowed is changeless and eternal. All flesh is grass, 
axd all the glory of max as the flower of grass. 
The grass withereth, and the flower thereof fall- 
etii away, but the word of the lord endureth for- 
EVER. 



THE END. 



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Reed. Engravings. 6 vols., Royal 12mo, Cloth, $9 00. 

SMILES'S LIFE OF THE STEPHENSONS. The Life of George Stephenson, and 
of his Son, Robert Stephenson ; comprising, also, a History of the Invention and 
Introduction of the Railway Locomotive. By Samuel Smiles, Author of "Self- 
Help," &c. With Steel Portraits and numerous Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $3 00. 

SMILES'S HISTORY OF THE HUGUENOTS. The Huguenots : their Settlements, 
Churches, and Industries in England and Ireland. By Samuel Smiles. With an 
Appendix relating to the Huguenots in America. Crown Svo, Cloth, $1 75. 

SPEKE'S AFRICA. Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. By Cap- 
tain John Hanning Speke, Captain H. M. Indian Army, Fellow and Gold Med- 
alist of the Royal Geographical Society, Hon. Corresponding Member and Gold 
Medalist of the FrencrTGeographical Society, &c. With Maps and Portraits and 
numerous Illustrations, chiefly from Drawings by Captain Geant. Svo, Cloth, 
uniform with Livingstone, Barth, Burton, &c, $4 00. 

STRICKLAND'S (Miss) QUEENS OF SCOTLAND. Lives of the Queens of Scot- 
land and English Princesses connected with the Regal Succession of Great Brit- 
ain. By Agnes Steickland. 8 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $12 00. 

THE STUDENT'S SERIES. 

France. Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. 

Gibbon. Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. 

Greece. Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. 

Hume. Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. 

Rome. ByLiddell. Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. 

Old Testament History. Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. 

New Testament Historv. Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. 

Strickland's Queens of England. Abridged. Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. 

Ancient History of the East. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. 

Hallam's Middle Ages. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. 

Lyell's Elements of Geology. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. 

TENNYSON'S COMPLETE POEMS. The Complete Poems of Alfred Tennyson, 
Poet Laureate. With numerous Illustrations by Eminent Artists, and Three 
Characteristic Portraits. Svo, Paper, 75 cents ; Cloth, $1 25. 

THOMSON'S LAND AND THE BOOK. The Land and the Book ; or, Biblical Illus- 
trations drawn from the Manners and Customs, the Scenes and the Scenery of 
the Holy Land. By W. M. Thomson, D.D., Twenty-five Years a Missionary of the 
A.B.C.F.M. in Syria and Palestine. With two elaborate Maps of Palestine, an ac- 
curate Plan of Jerusalem, and several hundred Engravings, representing the Scen- 
ery, Topography, and Productions of the Holy Land, and the Costumes, Manners, 
and Habits of the People. 2 large 12mo vols., Cloth, $5 00. 

TYERMAN'S WESLEY. The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, M. A., Found- 
er of the Methodists. By the Rev. Luke Tyeeman, Author of " The Life of Rev. 
Samuel Wesley." Portraits. 3 vols., Crown Svo, Cloth, $7 50. 

VAMBERY'S CENTRAL ASIA. Travels in Central Asia. Being the Account of a 
Journey from Teheran across the Turkoman Desert, on the Eastern Shore of the 
Caspian, to Khiva, Bokhara, and Samarcand, performed in the Year 1863. By 
Aeminius Vambeey, Member of the Hungarian Academy of Pesth, by whom he 
was sent on this Scientific Mission. With Map and Woodcuts. Svo, Cloth, $4 50. 

WOOD'S HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. Homes Without Hands : being a Descrip- 
tion of the Habitations of Animals, classed according to their Principle of Con- 
struction. By J. G. Wood, M.A., F.L.S. With about 140 Illustrations. Svo, 
Cloth, Beveled Edges, $4 50. 



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